Oxycontin

[ochotona]

I had shoulder surgery in December, too much Aikido I suppose, and I found Oxycontin to be a rough and revolting drug with terrible side-effects. I never had an issue with codeine (Tylenol 3).

Back to the original topic, I've never used Oxycontin but I had a doctor prescribe Tramadol for back pain which is another synthetic opioid drug. The bottle is still sitting unused on a shelf, not because of any bad reaction but because it didn't do anything at all, at least as far as I could tell. Maybe they gave me a placebo. Personally I prefer smoking pot. I think there is some evidence that there are fewer deaths from opioid addiction in places where it has been legalized.

Oxy didn't relieve my pain either, and it made me sick.

[dualstow]

Interesting, I've never taken it. Dentist gave me endocet after wisdom tooth extraction and it was fantas- I mean, it worked. I can see why people get hooked on those, and hopefully I'll never have the need to take one again.

[Kriegsspiel]

I got some codeine after I had my appendix removed. It was alright. Nothing to get addicted over.

[jacksonM]

PBS recently did a documentary on opioid addiction. One thing it showed was that when someone checks into a hospital for a heart attack they are treated and then referred to specialists for further treatment. If you overdose on opioids you are treated and then, if you manage to survive, you are discharged and then left to fend for yourself.

Also, it showed that there is encouraging treatment available but it's hard to get.

Until we start treating it as a medical condition instead of a crime to be punished I think all the talk of solving the problem will be just as meaningless and unsuccessful as the rest of the "war on drugs" has been.

[Libertarian666]

The war on drugs is over.
Drugs won.

Time to declare defeat and get out.

[jacksonM]

The war on drugs is over.
Drugs won.

Time to declare defeat and get out.

Amen!

[Kriegsspiel]

A witness has testified that an ex-stripper-turned-drug company executive gave a doctor a lap dance as part of a sales pitch for an addictive fentanyl spray.

Holly Brown, a former sales representative at Insys Therapeutics, said in federal court on Tuesday that her then-boss, Sunrise Lee, had been rewarding the Illinois doctor, identified as Paul Madison, who received the alleged dance for prescribing the powerful product to patients and paying him to speak at events, Reuters reported. link

[Xan]

PBS recently did a documentary on opioid addiction. One thing it showed was that when someone checks into a hospital for a heart attack they are treated and then referred to specialists for further treatment. If you overdose on opioids you are treated and then, if you manage to survive, you are discharged and then left to fend for yourself.

Also, it showed that there is encouraging treatment available but it's hard to get.

Until we start treating it as a medical condition instead of a crime to be punished I think all the talk of solving the problem will be just as meaningless and unsuccessful as the rest of the "war on drugs" has been.

That was a fascinating documentary and I highly recommend it. Very scary stuff.

[WiseOne]

PBS recently did a documentary on opioid addiction. One thing it showed was that when someone checks into a hospital for a heart attack they are treated and then referred to specialists for further treatment. If you overdose on opioids you are treated and then, if you manage to survive, you are discharged and then left to fend for yourself.

That should not ever be true. I suspect that it's a case of something treated in the emergency department that's supposed to be followed up by a primary care physician, except we all know what the barriers are there. Also, there is no mechanism for an emergency MD or dept to follow up with the patient to make sure the care transition took place.

It's the kind of stuff that's happening more and more in our dysfunctional medical system. Followup appointments pay squat and barely break even with expenses (due to high overhead more than low fees), if that. New patient appointments and procedures is how an office practice makes money. If you don't have either of those to offer, you're basically a drag on the practice. There are trends now to shift most followups to telemedicine calls or to clinics run by nurse practitioners, both of which help reduce costs and will hopefully at least partially address the problem.

[sweetbthescrivener]

I had a somewhat hellacious fall in December of last year, but no broken bones, very limited movement in my arm, and tons of pain if I moved it out of a very narrow window of motion.

I could handle the pain and was mostly relieved nothing was broken, though it was hard to find a a good sleeping position so I asked the emergency room doc if I could have some higher dose ibuprofen in case I needed it.

She came in after the X Rays, said nothing was broken and left, and the nurse told me the doctor had prescribed 5 days of Hydrocodone for me, which seemed odd at the time, and made me wonder if it was just what they did automatically for pain.

With the opioid crisis so much in the news, I was both relieved about pain relief and feeling some trepidation at all the stories we hear all the time.

But I figured ten pills couldn't get me in trouble so I took them before bed or if I was getting a bunch of pain during the day.

What I noticed on the first day was that they didn't really make the pain go away, they just made me feel pretty good until they wore off. It wasn't the messy pretty good feeling of having some drinks, it was a very clean but weird feeling. I guess I can say it felt medicinal or chemical, and unnatural.

It was kind of like a first cigarette, where the good feeling was weighed against the chemical/unnatural feeling (Hard to describe. Like the difference between taking mushrooms and taking LSD. The pain pills felt somehow accelerated or unnatural, like LSD rather than the mellower mushrooms) and then there was a letdown phase of poor energy when the effects faded, so, like that first cigarette, there were positives and negatives, but no real reason to continue.

Taking it a few nights in a row, it was a comfort to know that I could roll on my side in the middle of the night without waking up feeling like Charles Barkley had hauled off and given me a charley horse in the middle of the night.

Took them for most of the early days too though, and what started off as weird was normal pretty soon, and ultimately, who wouldn't want a pill that side stepped anxiety, depression, worry and just made you feel 'all right' without any observable loss of cognition or motor skills?

(Unless like a lot of us, you are also aware of tolerance and declining potency of the drug, not to mention physical dependence. Besides those two, it was a pretty spiffy little pill to take, and it is not surprising that people, especially the frustrated or depressed, take to it pretty quickly.)

My experiment ended after 7 days and to be honest, I missed it on the 8th and 9th day, and if someone had offered me one, I would at very least been tempted to toss it down my throat.

An enlightening and a little scary experiment all things considered. Talked about it with my therapist and he said that for some people, five days, ten pills that is, is enough to get them hooked and he has seen it in his own practice.

Despite the fact that on the 8th day, another little pill was a mild temptation, the mental image of becoming a burglar and fencing hot tvs and computers in exchange for pills was a much more vivid and stark image, and ultimately it was no contest.

Still, it made me understand and have some compassion for people who get sucked into this life, and that aspect was at least worthwhile, although next time I will insist on the ibuprofen or nothing at all.

I found it very odd that the emergency doc automatically prescribed it when I had asked for something else and that all she and the pharmacist seemed concerned about was that I wouldn't operate heavy machinery.

Cool if you get addicted, but not if you are stocking Amazon shelves.

Man, I wonder how many pills I could have got if I had jacked a forklift and gave it to the dude on the corner.

[Libertarian666]

I had a somewhat hellacious fall in December of last year, but no broken bones, very limited movement in my arm, and tons of pain if I moved it out of a very narrow window of motion.

I could handle the pain and was mostly relieved nothing was broken, though it was hard to find a a good sleeping position so I asked the emergency room doc if I could have some higher dose ibuprofen in case I needed it.

She came in after the X Rays, said nothing was broken and left, and the nurse told me the doctor had prescribed 5 days of Hydrocodone for me, which seemed odd at the time, and made me wonder if it was just what they did automatically for pain.

With the opioid crisis so much in the news, I was both relieved about pain relief and feeling some trepidation at all the stories we hear all the time.

But I figured ten pills couldn't get me in trouble so I took them before bed or if I was getting a bunch of pain during the day.

What I noticed on the first day was that they didn't really make the pain go away, they just made me feel pretty good until they wore off. It wasn't the messy pretty good feeling of having some drinks, it was a very clean but weird feeling. I guess I can say it felt medicinal or chemical, and unnatural.

It was kind of like a first cigarette, where the good feeling was weighed against the chemical/unnatural feeling (Hard to describe. Like the difference between taking mushrooms and taking LSD. The pain pills felt somehow accelerated or unnatural, like LSD rather than the mellower mushrooms) and then there was a letdown phase of poor energy when the effects faded, so, like that first cigarette, there were positives and negatives, but no real reason to continue.

Taking it a few nights in a row, it was a comfort to know that I could roll on my side in the middle of the night without waking up feeling like Charles Barkley had hauled off and given me a charley horse in the middle of the night.

Took them for most of the early days too though, and what started off as weird was normal pretty soon, and ultimately, who wouldn't want a pill that side stepped anxiety, depression, worry and just made you feel 'all right' without any observable loss of cognition or motor skills?

(Unless like a lot of us, you are also aware of tolerance and declining potency of the drug, not to mention physical dependence. Besides those two, it was a pretty spiffy little pill to take, and it is not surprising that people, especially the frustrated or depressed, take to it pretty quickly.)

My experiment ended after 7 days and to be honest, I missed it on the 8th and 9th day, and if someone had offered me one, I would at very least been tempted to toss it down my throat.

An enlightening and a little scary experiment all things considered. Talked about it with my therapist and he said that for some people, five days, ten pills that is, is enough to get them hooked and he has seen it in his own practice.

Despite the fact that on the 8th day, another little pill was a mild temptation, the mental image of becoming a burglar and fencing hot tvs and computers in exchange for pills was a much more vivid and stark image, and ultimately it was no contest.

Still, it made me understand and have some compassion for people who get sucked into this life, and that aspect was at least worthwhile, although next time I will insist on the ibuprofen or nothing at all.

I found it very odd that the emergency doc automatically prescribed it when I had asked for something else and that all she and the pharmacist seemed concerned about was that I wouldn't operate heavy machinery.

Cool if you get addicted, but not if you are stocking Amazon shelves.

Man, I wonder how many pills I could have got if I had jacked a forklift and gave it to the dude on the corner.

I have been prescribed hydrocodone a number of times and have taken it as needed. I haven't felt any desire to continue after the pain was more tolerable.

I don't seem to be an addiction-prone type, but of course I know I'm not necessarily representative of the general public.

[jacksonM]

I see some evidence of an addictive personality in myself. When I find a song I really like I will sometimes find myself playing it over and over again to keep the feeling going. Also, I have a hard time keeping a six-pack of beer in the refrigerator with the intention of having it last for several days. It's almost always gone the same night. I also posted something along these lines over on the religion thread.

I think this is probably different than people dealing with serious addiction problems however. That PBS documentary showed me that to them it's not so much enjoying the high as it is needing it. Most of them had low levels of dopamine to begin with so it becomes a choice between feeling good or feeling horrible all the time. I've never had a long lasting episode of depression but I've felt it enough on occasion, as we probably all have, to understand what they are probably dealing with.

[boglerdude]

Low dopamine folks will do anything to feel normal/good and you cant "blame" them. Drugs, gambling...most of society's bad behaviors

[Kriegsspiel]

A witness has testified that an ex-stripper-turned-drug company executive gave a doctor a lap dance as part of a sales pitch for an addictive fentanyl spray.

Holly Brown, a former sales representative at Insys Therapeutics, said in federal court on Tuesday that her then-boss, Sunrise Lee, had been rewarding the Illinois doctor, identified as Paul Madison, who received the alleged dance for prescribing the powerful product to patients and paying him to speak at events, Reuters reported. link

Heh.

Ms. Napier, 26, was a star cheerleader on the national-champion University of Kentucky squad, which has been a springboard for many careers in pharmaceutical sales. She now plies doctors' offices selling the antacid Prevacid for TAP Pharmaceutical Products.

Ms. Napier says the skills she honed performing for thousands of fans helped land her job. "I would think, essentially, that cheerleaders make good sales people," she said.

Anyone who has seen the parade of sales representatives through a doctor's waiting room has probably noticed that they are frequently female and invariably good looking. Less recognized is the fact that a good many are recruited from the cheerleading ranks.

Known for their athleticism, postage-stamp skirts and persuasive enthusiasm, cheerleaders have many qualities the drug industry looks for in its sales force. link

I worked in a company that hired 98% (estimated) attractive females, it was cool. Not sure it was an industry specification though.

[ochotona]

Oxycontin exists because the profit margin is much higher for a proprietary molecule rather than just plain old codeine. Or plain old insulin. Whatever. They make up these new compounds which are knock-offs of the old ones, or insert one tiny twist in the IP (like a new dispenser... my wife's asthma inhaler went from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, same molecule, can't buy the old dispenser in Amerikka), buy out and suppress the old generics, and then hold the knife to the public's throat. Literally, Pay my toll or die, bitch.

[WiseOne]

Sweetb, that's a very sobering story. I think most of us would figure that 5 days of an opioid is too short a time to trigger a withdrawal response.

Obviously your brief story as posted is not enough to judge what happened at the ER, but I will just say that first line pain medication for that situation is round the clock Advil/Motrin/ibuprofen (800 every 8 hours, or 600 every 6 hours), plus you can add Tylenol if needed. Assuming no contraindications to these meds of course. It really works when you take it on schedule and not just intermittently. If something like that ever happens to you again you might consider trying that, and keeping the opioid script in your back pocket to use if you need it. Caution: If the opioid contains acetaminophen or ibuprofen, like Percocet or Vicodin, be careful not to accidentally double up on those.

I don't suppose the ER doc suggested ice and recommended followup, in case you needed physical therapy?

[jacksonM]

An excellent article by an MD who seems to really understand what's behind the opioid OD crisis. Hint - it's not over-prescription by MD's or pharmaceutical companies turning into drug pushers. It's prohibition.

https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... oblem.html

[jacksonM]

An excellent article by an MD who seems to really understand what's behind the opioid OD crisis. Hint - it's not over-prescription by MD's or pharmaceutical companies turning into drug pushers. It's prohibition.

https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... oblem.html

That was a great article!

It was really thought provoking when he pointed out that nobody had ever overdosed from those morphine things they give you in the hospital after surgery where you can give yourself as much as you want.

If I understood him correctly, the OD's are mostly the result of people taking powerful illegal drugs laced with fentanyl for which they have not allowed their bodies to build up a tolerance.

Reminded me a little of the stories of alcohol being intentionally poisoned during prohibition which contributed to a lot of deaths among alcoholics. Only this time the government isn't actively doing the poisoning. They are just allowing drug dealers to do it for them.

[WiseOne]

An excellent article by an MD who seems to really understand what's behind the opioid OD crisis. Hint - it's not over-prescription by MD's or pharmaceutical companies turning into drug pushers. It's prohibition.

https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... oblem.html

That was a great article!

It was really thought provoking when he pointed out that nobody had ever overdosed from those morphine things they give you in the hospital after surgery where you can give yourself as much as you want.

If I understood him correctly, the OD's are mostly the result of people taking powerful illegal drugs laced with fentanyl for which they have not allowed their bodies to build up a tolerance.

Reminded me a little of the stories of alcohol being intentionally poisoned during prohibition which contributed to a lot of deaths among alcoholics. Only this time the government isn't actively doing the poisoning. They are just allowing drug dealers to do it for them.

The overall point about prohibition is a good one, but I just couldn't resist mentioning that there's apparently something the author doesn't know about PCA (patient controlled analgesia): yes you can give yourself tiny doses of morphine when you want it, but there is a built-in limit so you can't give yourself more than a set maximum per hour. Do you really think a a hospital in our litigious society would hand you a clicker that could injure or kill you if you hit it too many times?

Interestingly, one reason that everyone likes PCA pumps is that patients end up getting less morphine with one of those than when they're on a traditional prn schedule where they have to ask a nurse for a dose. It's about the patient having complete control.

[jacksonM]

That was a great article!

It was really thought provoking when he pointed out that nobody had ever overdosed from those morphine things they give you in the hospital after surgery where you can give yourself as much as you want.

If I understood him correctly, the OD's are mostly the result of people taking powerful illegal drugs laced with fentanyl for which they have not allowed their bodies to build up a tolerance.

Reminded me a little of the stories of alcohol being intentionally poisoned during prohibition which contributed to a lot of deaths among alcoholics. Only this time the government isn't actively doing the poisoning. They are just allowing drug dealers to do it for them.

The overall point about prohibition is a good one, but I just couldn't resist mentioning that there's apparently something the author doesn't know about PCA (patient controlled analgesia): yes you can give yourself tiny doses of morphine when you want it, but there is a built-in limit so you can't give yourself more than a set maximum per hour. Do you really think a a hospital in our litigious society would hand you a clicker that could injure or kill you if you hit it too many times?

Interestingly, one reason that everyone likes PCA pumps is that patients end up getting less morphine with one of those than when they're on a traditional prn schedule where they have to ask a nurse for a dose. It's about the patient having complete control.

I think your last sentence was the salient point of the article. If people could get the drugs or whatever it is they need to cope without it is they are coping with then they wouldn't have to resort to buying illegal and unsafe drugs in desperation.

[dualstow]

Lawsuit time.

[dualstow]

Lawsuit time.

Another money grab by politicians, IMHO. Not the mfg's fault if people abuse their legal products.

Legal, yes, but aggressively marketed without significant warnings about the risk of addiction.

[Kriegsspiel]

Dozens of medical professionals in seven states were charged Wednesday with participating in the illegal prescribing of more than 32 million pain pills, including doctors who prosecutors said traded sex for prescriptions and a dentist who unnecessarily pulled teeth from patients to justify giving them opioids.

The 60 people indicted include 31 doctors, seven pharmacists, eight nurse practitioners and seven other licensed medical professionals. The charges stem from the government’s largest prescription-opioid takedown. It involves more than 350,000 illegal prescriptions written in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to indictments unsealed in federal court in Cincinnati.

“That is the equivalent of one opioid dose for every man, woman and child” in the region, Brian Benczkowski, an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in an interview. “If these medical professionals behave like drug dealers, you can rest assured that the Justice Department is going to treat them like drug dealers.”

link

[Maddy]

Who are these "medical professionals?" How, in this day and age of computerized-everything, does this kind of prescribing pattern go unnoticed? Who in their right mind spends $200,000 for a medical degree and then risks everything? Who are these peoples' professional peers, and why aren't they speaking up? Cartels bringing in boatloads of heroin I get, but this kind of thing leaves me confused.

[boglerdude]

Maybe they're libertarian? Who are you tell an adult he cant get high