Just say no to Oxycontin

[Allen Yeh]

Rant on:

Before my wife's surgery I had only heard about oxycontin when people talked about painkiller addiction briefly on the news here and there. Now as my wife has been trying to get off of this I am only too aware of how terrible this stuff is.

Initially after her surgery they had her on a morphine drip and moved her to a combination of percoset and oxycontin 3x a day. That combination didn't seem to be able to do much to diminish her pain and so after 3 days they moved her to a oxycontin 3x a day and oxycondone(liquid oxycontin basically) 6x a day. It worked great for the pain though it left her a bit foggy somedays.

Fast forward to mid July, as she started to cut back on the oxycontin/oxycodone combination she started getting progressively tired though at the time we had no idea what was causing her to feel worse all of a sudden. Last week at her doctors appointment with the neurologist he was somewhat shocked when he heard that they had sent her home with a 30 day supply of oxycontin/oxycondone without instructions to ramp down (other than going by feeling). He promptly told her to stop the oxycontin and switched her to vicodin.

This is where the fun begins, thursday was her first day without it and she felt more alert than she had for weeks even though the pain was considerably worse. Friday, the pain was till there but other than being a bit tired, nothing much else to report other than some weird mood related things. Saturday wasn't too bad, Sunday was terrible, everything I had seen on tv/movies about heroin withdrawal was what was happening in my house AND we weren't told/warned at all other than what I decided to research via google. Hot/cold flashes, curled on the floor, puking, so dizzy that she couldn't stand, uncontrollable mood swings (bawling about anything/everything to pissed off about the same things), couldn't keep any food down, water the only thing she could keep down at all until monday afternoon.

She's doing better now but still has moments where she just incapacitated and then seems ok and is able to keep her food down.


This makes me think about what went wrong??? Was the hospital wrong for not sending her more specific instructions? Was her doctor wrong for not warning her at all? Were we wrong for not doing out research about this drug before agreeing to her taking it a total of 9x/day some days?? Now she refuses to take her vicodin also saying that she'd rather be in pain than to go through anything like right now, and while part of me understands that, another part of me is afraid the pain will be too much.

Final message:

Of course it's easy for me to say, don't take/let loved ones take oxycontin but being/seeing a loved one in extreme pain is no great treat either.

Rant off

[Steve Shafley]

Holy crap, Allen...been a rough ride. Hopefully things now smooth out.

[Scott Kustes]

Oxycontin is bad stuff. I received a 3-day supply after my shoulder surgery and later found out that Oxycontin is intended for people with chronic pain, not post-surgical pain. It even says so on the insert. I took them Thursday-Saturday, then Sunday night had the worst migraine I've ever had, couldn't sleep but was exceptionally tired, was nauseous, hot/cold spells. I checked out withdrawal symptoms for Oxycontin and everyone of them was on there. I can't say for sure that only 3 days of Oxy would do that to me, but the pieces all fall into place. Nothing like what your wife had to deal with though....good luck with that.

[Ron Nelson]

Apparently doctors think that if you're an "intelligent human being" you don't need instructions past "go by feeling." Here they give you a 30 day supply of synthetic opium without explicit instructions? In my opinion, they should have their prescription pads seized.

This stuff is as bad, if not worse, than meth. Look at the rash of pharmacy break-ins and armed robberies. What do they criminals want? Oxy and Sudafed. Take one while you cook your meth with the other.

As Steve said, I hope the worst is over and things smooth out from here. My father-in-law hs had severe back pain for the past 10 years and has resisted all efforts to put him on Oxy, thank God. Vicadin does nothing for him, so he basically toughs it out until he can get epidural treatments.

[Dave Van Skike]

Apparently doctors think that if you're an "intelligent human being" you don't need instructions past "go by feeling." Here they give you a 30 day supply of synthetic opium without explicit instructions? In my opinion, they should have their prescription pads seized.

This stuff is as bad, if not worse, than meth. Look at the rash of pharmacy break-ins and armed robberies. What do they criminals want? Oxy and Sudafed. Take one while you cook your meth with the other.

As Steve said, I hope the worst is over and things smooth out from here. My father-in-law hs had severe back pain for the past 10 years and has resisted all efforts to put him on Oxy, thank God. Vicadin does nothing for him, so he basically toughs it out until he can get epidural treatments.

The stree price of Oxy is unrelatedx to how "bad" it is. Oxy is expensive because middle and upper class people are willign to pay for a very "safe" high with similar to effects as heroin. Oxy is in supply, easy to get and easy to retail.

In terms of physical effect meth is way,way bad, not always from the basic pharmacology but by the nasty shit is is cut with and the pattern of use/abuse.


Oxy get's a lot of nasty press, esp. right now. I would say that the way many Doc.s rx it is far from irresponsible. Addressing chronic severe pain is one of modern medicine's true breakthroughs, the fact that our culture has a schizo relationship with drugs of all kinds, legal and otherwise is the underlying problem.

Good for you Allen for being on top of this. In a "pay to play" health care system like ours, there is huge, maybe unrealistic responsibilty placed on the patient to double check the work of their doctors and be their own advocate.

[Derek Simonds]

I am glad to hear that she is doing better. It is never easy going through any type of detox. I unfortunately had to go through that with a family member last year and it is nuts.

My sister works in East Tennessee and she says that oxy abuse is one of the biggest challenges that they face on weekly basis.

I definitely think that doctors should do a better job of explaining how to handle coming off meds. I had my jaw wired shut many years ago and was on vicodin every 3 hours. Nobody told me how to handle it or to come off it. I started decreasing the dosage after 2 weeks and when I was in my 3rd week I was psycho, mean, moody the gamut. Luckily it wasn't a synthetic opium type of product.

Keep us posted of the progress.

[Steve Shafley]

I met the guy who broke methcathinone out of the archives at Parke-Davis and into northern Michigan. I didn't know it at the time, he was just some doofus I had a beer with at a friends house. Later on, he was arrested and jailed.

http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/meth1.htm

[Allen Yeh]

All,

She's doing a lot better than earlier this week but still has her moments of cold sweats plus something I forgot to mention before she says she feels like she's being shocked in her head.

Scott,

That sounds about right to me. I didn't realize it was supposed to be for chronic pain and not post-op.

Ron,

Good for your father-in-law although that's quite a few years just to suffer, the right answer...I have no clue.

[Ken Urakawa]

Sh*t Allen, good luck with everything! Just be thankful for everything that you can be, even the small stuff, and keep pressing on.