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Old 07-23-2010, 01:57 PM
butchd butchd is offline
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Default A question for drug users

The older I get the more grugs I meet. I had a vitrectomy the other day. That's where the doc goes into the eye where he cuts away and sucks out the goop that builds up in the vitreous fluid. Other than appearing as though I had been in a fight no big deal. It hurt like heck for a while but he prescribed Vicodan for the pain. I have never been a drug abuser but I've heard much about its use in the street. "House" used it and was hooked on it. I guess I drank enough Evan Williams years ago to build a tolerance to drugs. What's the big deal? Vicodan affects me less than a few beers would if memory serves. I hear that the tablets bring several bucks a piece but I don't think I could buy a bottle of asperin for what I paid for the hydrocodone. What am I doing wrong? One of the few pleasures of getting old and sick ought to be legal use of recreational drugs. Any experience?
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Old 07-23-2010, 02:04 PM
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Narcotics are the only drugs that interfere with the flow of pain messages to the brain (it's what makes them effective and attractive to dopers). The downside is that opiates (synthetic or natural) put the peristaltic action to sleep. Take it long enough at therapeutic doses and you will pray to poop. YMMV. Joe
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Old 07-23-2010, 02:42 PM
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i guess the "big deal"is the very addicting nature of narcotics as well as the self destruction if abused
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Old 07-23-2010, 02:43 PM
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Everyone's pain response is different, and what works to control one person's pain may not work for another. So typically, a physician will start a patient at the lowest recommended dose, assess for pain control and side effects, and increase the dose and/or frequency until some optimal therapeutic level is reached. For most people, that is below the level at which they feel "buzzed," although that depends on a lot of things, especially the drug. Some of these drugs (Fentanyl or Versed, for example) have strong amnestic as well as analgesic effects, and so, you don't remember the pain -- or anything else much really -- from the period you were taking the medication.

Constipation is a real issue, and if you are taking these therapeutically , you'll want to be drinking a lot of water and taking a stool softener.

You can definitely get a buzz if you choose to take these medicines (Vicodin, hydrocodone) in greater than prescribed amounts, but if your self-description as having developed tolerance already is correct, you will whip through what is prescribed in record time, and then what? Your doctor may stretch the limit some, but that won't go on for long, and I believe all states now have computerized cross-reference systems to detect people who are getting multiple prescriptions for the same or related drugs from multiple physicians.

Frankly, if you're in a state where medical marijuana is available, that is a better option for you. The worst side effect from smoking weed is that you may eat the entire bag of Oreos and then fall asleep. If medical marijuana is not an option, then a little (4 to 6 fl. oz.) fine sippin' whiskey consumed slowly over a period of 2 to 4 hours ought to impart a nice rosey glow.

If you are taking any opiate--or benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Ambien, Valium, Librium, Halcion, etc.--drinking is a very bad idea. This goes double for barbiturates, e.g., Seconal (reds), Nembutal (yellows), and Tuinal (rainbows). Opiates, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and alcohol are all central nervous system depressants, and can dangerously depress your breathing and heart rate, or cause you to vomit and aspirate the vomitus into the lungs, which can produce often fatal or life-threatening conditions. Think stomach acid dissolving delicate lung tissue, and you'll understand why this is something you really do not want to experiment with.

Of course, if you are taking any heart medications, especially for high blood pressure or an arrhythmia, you need to be especially careful. Of the available recreational drugs, marijuana is probably the safest short-term, but this too can cause a vagal response wherein the vagus nerve is irritated inducing a sharp drop in blood pressure, sharp enough to cause the temporary loss of consciousness. This happens more often when wine or other alcohol and a significant amount of food is also consumed. All of these things are vasodilators. Vasodilators open up the pipes, but cause blood pressure to drop and heart rate to increase. And eating of course moves blood flow from the periphery to the the gut, which can contribute to the problem.

So, be careful, and of course don't drive while doing any of these things. Sorry to preach, but I used to work in the trauma center in Baltimore, and I don't want you getting your next batch of Vicodin because you had to be admitted to one of those places.


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Old 07-23-2010, 02:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pharmer View Post
Narcotics are the only drugs that interfere with the flow of pain messages to the brain (it's what makes them effective and attractive to dopers). The downside is that opiates (synthetic or natural) put the peristaltic action to sleep. Take it long enough at therapeutic doses and you will pray to poop. YMMV. Joe
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Old 07-23-2010, 04:18 PM
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If the drug your doc isn't doing it for you -- Call him...
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Old 07-23-2010, 04:20 PM
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The worst part of the vicodin type drugs when over used is the amount of Tylenol (acetaminophen) in them. Over use of acetaminophen can be worse than the hydrocodone and mess up your kidneys.

Depends on what strength was prescribed. 5/500 ??

The Oxycontin is more potent and what the street users look for.

If you are in pain, take your medicine, and rest . Hope you feel better, does not sound like a fun thing.
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Old 07-23-2010, 04:33 PM
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About six years ago I suffered an injury to my lower back. The pain was excrutiating and actually had me on the verge of suicide. Several different drugs were prescribed and nothing even took the edge off the pain.

Finally, my doctor prescribed Oxycontin. 20mg twice a day was a miracle for me. Immediate relief. After several weeks of PT I was much better and quit taking the meds altogether. No addiction issues and I would have to say it was harder getting on the Oxycontin (nausea, dizziness, etc) than getting off it (just took the last tablet and that was it; no tapering off and no withdrawl symptoms).

I truly think it has everything to due with ones body chemistry, personality etc. It just affects everyone differently.
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Old 07-23-2010, 06:01 PM
gregintenn gregintenn is offline
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Pain medicine makes me nausious. I'd rather hurt than take it. I have no idea how people take it for pleasure. I'll agree that Evan Williams works a whole lot better.
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Old 07-23-2010, 06:30 PM
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When I had a cracked molar (major, major pain) I had a prescription for Vicodin. I found that the first pill helped a lot with the tooth pain, and when I took the second one 6 hrs later, I was high-stepping all afternoon. Haven't felt that good and pain free in many years.

Yeah, it could be addictive.
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Old 07-23-2010, 07:21 PM
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If you take Vicodin and drink, you will turn into the meanest SOB on the block!
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Old 07-23-2010, 07:32 PM
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When I had my heart surgery last fall, the doc prescribed Oxycontin. I was fine in the hospital, the cute young nurses kept coming in and asking me if I wanted some. Not being the kind of guy to turn down young sweeties, I accepted. They'd come in every 4 hours and give me 2 of the pills. Life was good.

Then I got home and my wife took the prescriptions to WalMart. Those were labeled 1 or 2 every 4 or 6 hours. Wife is a nurse (but not young). Her reading was 1 pill every 6 hours, not the two every 4 the young ones offered. Big difference. OK, maybe she wanted me in pain because of the way I looked at the cuties (I looked at her that way 40 years ago.) Anyway, it soom became apparent I needed to manage my own pain meds. Other peoples judgment just doesn't cut it.

So I went to a club meeting a few weeks later and sat in my usual place, with my usual friends. I commented on not getting high from the pills at all. Yes, they made me sleepy but really all they did was mask the pain. One of my buddies, a retired city cop, smiled at me and told me I was taking them wrong. His solution was I should take them with a cold beer!
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Old 07-23-2010, 08:09 PM
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i had a bad tooth a few years ago, took some loratabs and i felt so good i raked the whole yard at 3 am!
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Old 07-24-2010, 07:27 AM
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When I crushed my big toe with a floor jack (I dropped it end on onto the toe) I was given Demerol in the ER while the Doc was working on patching it back together. That stuff had me flying high as a kite. However, all I got for my recovery was a prescription for Tylenol 3, that I never bothered to fill because from past experience Tylenol 3 doesn't do anything for me. Basically, I just toughed it out.

BTW, the ER doc was an Ortho resident and for a newby he did darned good work. I busted that toe into 14 seperate bone fragments and today the only result is I can feel the weather coming and the nail is very funky looking as a result of his opening up the nail bed. I also learned that it's really really dumb to carry a floor jack by the handle and front axle, when the handle slips out it's going to fall straight down.
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Old 07-24-2010, 07:48 AM
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When I was 17 I broke my lower left leg while skiing. Double spiral fracture of tibia and single spiral fracture of fibula, with displacement. Injected pain killer (Demerol) for 2 or 3 days, and then tablets for about 2 weeks. In just that short time I was dependent on the drugs and went through a bit of withdrawal when my doctor said no more. My point is that pain medicine can be wonderful, but be really careful with it. It is easy to become dependent on it.
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Old 07-24-2010, 03:10 PM
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I take legally prescribed percocets for diabetic nerve pain. My biggest piece of advice is to watch out for constipation. I find that if I take them for three days in a row (one dose per day) I get in trouble.

Also, don't take more than recomended at one time. Most of these drugs contain Tylenol and that will hurt your liver if you take more than 1,000 milligrams per 6 hours or more than 4,000 mgs per day.

Mike D.
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Old 07-24-2010, 04:46 PM
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We know a couple where the guy has severe back problems and got addicted to Oxycontin just as Rush Limbaugh did. It's just tearing their marriage apart and is painful to watch. I sure don't condone drug use but when someone you know goes through it you get a whole new perspective of the problem.

Bob
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Old 07-24-2010, 05:15 PM
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We know a couple where the guy has severe back problems and got addicted to Oxycontin just as Rush Limbaugh did. It's just tearing their marriage apart and is painful to watch. I sure don't condone drug use but when someone you know goes through it you get a whole new perspective of the problem.

Bob
If anyone needs to locate good treatment for a substance abuse problem, you can go to this website and enter some general location information and get a list of treatment centers and practices near you. These places are screened by the US Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and they all meet professional standards and licensing requirements. I'd pick three and talk to them, then choose.


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Old 07-24-2010, 06:16 PM
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This guy must have been needing alot of "medicinal marijuana"

Police charge Ossining man with accepting 13-pound marijuana delivery | LoHud.com | The Journal News
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Old 07-24-2010, 06:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke426 View Post
About six years ago I suffered an injury to my lower back. The pain was excrutiating and actually had me on the verge of suicide. Several different drugs were prescribed and nothing even took the edge off the pain.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

I hurt my back in 1981 while I was in the Army. Spent almost 5 weeks in the hospital inand out of traction, PT, Steroids, Pain pills..... Got well enought to RTD (return to duty). Well, after a total of 24 years of playing Army and 14 years of pounding the concrete for FL DOC I couldn't atke it any more.

From 2006 through 2009 I went through more medical procedures than I can count to "fix" my back pain. Nothing was working, so my orhto spine doc and pain management doc decided I was a good candidate for a intra-thecal pain pump. If anyone ever tells you you need one of those things stuck into your spine gut shoot him/herwith your CCW and then cut their throat with your S&W tanto blade. You can win the case in court with a self dense....defense.I was taking hyrdocodone 10-500 by the handfulls along with a new pain pill called nucynta. I was a zombie, drooling, lethargic drunk. I still hurt, but I just didn't care.

I quit cold turkey about 5 weeks ago. I still have the same pain and now I'm awake and functioning well enough to ENJOY the pain.

Oh yeah, and all those pain pills eat testosterone. If you're my age or anywhere close........you need as much testosterone and you can get. Real or otherwise.

good luck

SC
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Old 07-24-2010, 11:36 PM
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I have chronic back pain and sciatica in my right leg. I take a daily dose of morphine in a time release capsule that is supposed to keep me at a moderate level 24/7. It doesn't make the pain go away but it does help me sleep at night, sometimes. It doesn't make me feel well enough to do anything else though.

My pain doctor told me the idea was to make me addicted to the drugs, then if they ever find a cure or anything changes the would worry about breaking the addiction later. The earlier references to constipation are putting it mildly and I asked the Dr. to prescribe something else to try to get some relief. Within four days the pain and withdrawl symtons were so bad I thought I was going to die and had to go back to the morphine. I know why they call it dope now.

According to
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Old 07-25-2010, 01:58 AM
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Everybody reacts differently to pain meds. You can give my wife 1/2 of a low dose pain pill and before long she's out like a light.
OTOH, I've always been resistant to them. After my heart surgery they had me on enough morphine to knock out a horse. I wasn't hurting, but I was also sitting up, watching TV and talking without the slightest bit of a buzz.
Its a bit troublesome these days because doctors are so worried about people getting hooked on the stuff because they could end up getting sued or worse.
So when doctors ask me if I want something for whatever pain I currently have, I try to explain that it needs to be really strong to do me any good. They usually give me this "yeah, right" kind of look and give me the normal stuff. I'll try a couple of them and almost always end up throwing the bottle in a drawer and just dealing with it.
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Old 07-25-2010, 02:30 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pharmer View Post
Narcotics are the only drugs that interfere with the flow of pain messages to the brain (it's what makes them effective and attractive to dopers). The downside is that opiates (synthetic or natural) put the peristaltic action to sleep. Take it long enough at therapeutic doses and you will pray to poop. YMMV. Joe
I have to disagree with the final sentence. I had a bad tooth/jaw infection that required knocking back before a root canal. One day's worth of Lortab (I think) was equivalent to having a bung shoved up my butt. It shut down my system on the spot.
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Old 07-25-2010, 07:54 AM
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If anyone needs to locate good treatment for a substance abuse problem, you can go to this website and enter some general location information and get a list of treatment centers and practices near you.
Thank you. Much appreciated and we passed it on. I guess there's a know process here that I don't really understand but anyway he's in a denial/blaming stage right now. It's really tense over there. Hopefully it'll end well for them.

Bob
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