A local television program tonight concentrated on all the addictions caused by this medication. It was flagship show and has some credibility so it will have a lot of traction.
However, what I can’t quite grasp is the addiction factor. After a major operation about 18 months ago I was prescribed Oxycodene.
It was, I suppose, alright for pain relief.
But there was nothing more. It never made me feel like I needed more of it, or would even ask for another prescription.
I understand medications affect people differently but to me it was a big nothing.
They gave me a ton of it when I injured my tailbone years ago. I had the same reaction as you. It relieved the pain somewhat, but it wasn’t all that. Some people must get a huge rush from it. I gave most of them away to a friend recovering from prostate surgery.
I used it with no issue after my patella tendon surgery… I have however seen and made arrest involving it and stolen perscription pads… I think if it wasn’t this for some people it would be something else…
I have had it many times. I noticed the last time, when I went cold turkey, that I had pretty severe withdrawals and if I need it again I will ween myself off instead of going cold turkey. Indeed, I’m pretty sure I had withdrawals every time, but wasn’t as aware.
While taking it, it did not make me high, but did muddle my brain. It was hard to read or even watch TV when I was on it.
One guy I know told me that a couple of doses with a bit of whiskey will make you feel gooood. I am not convinced that he was kidding, he may indeed have taken it this way. If so, I didn’t want to hear the details.
I had a prescription after surgery once and I felt the same way you did. After I got better, I still had some left so I am ashamed to say that I tried to see what the fuss was about by crushing three times the prescribed dose. It made me feel off but not in a good way. I still don’t get it.
I think it depends partially on your situation, too. I got a prescription for Vicodin (hydrocodone plus acetaminophen/paracetamol; not oxycodone) after breaking my wrist, and realized after taking a dose that I didn’t really care that my wrist was broken and that I’d have to cope with all of the related issues. I can see how someone in a bad life situation might enjoy the release from anxiety, if oxycodone is anything like that.
(Twenty minutes after taking it, however, I threw up. Trying it on both full and empty stomach gave the same result, so I stopped taking it.)
I had some prescribed recently by an ER doctor for a bout of shingles. (Ouch.) I was taking them as prescribed when I went to see my primary care physician three days later. She was a little surprised at the quantity I’d been taking and suggested I ease up. I switched to ibuprofen, which did the trick at that point. No trouble stopping, but while I was taking it, I slept pretty much all the time. I was happy to be asleep at the time, but a three day nap is not something I’d see much interest in taking drugs for recreationally.
People who are abusing are not taking it as prescribed. As others have mentioned, it is crushed up and snorted, giving an intense high that isn’t really comparable to the pain relief you get when taken normally.
Y’all are nuts. I’ve taken it the regular way (ingested orally, not snorted) and that stuff makes you feel great.
Snorting pills is actually really horrible since pills are made up mostly of binding agents that wreak havoc on your nasal canal. When I was in high school I tried it with a different kind of pill and it burned like hell.
It probably depends a lot on your body chemistry. Personally, I could totally see how people get addicted to opiates after I got my wisdom teeth out. Yeah, it pretty much sends you to sleep, but in my case it was blissful sleep, kind of like hugging a warm blanket o’happiness around you.
I told my mother this and she thought I was completely insane. (Of course, she did have the puking side effect, which, I’m sure, makes the whole experience a lot less pleasant.)
Also, you were all in PAIN when you took it. It was doing what it was designed to do- dull the pain and allow you to feel normal.
Take it when you don’t have pain and it will make you feel like you are wrapped in a nice opiate blanket- warm, fuzzy and numb.
Not to everyone’s taste, but for those who like it, a big plus.
Don’t use Oxycodone much here except in cancer patients- we’re all about the codeine. Codeine ischeap, horribly constipating and usually mixed with paracetamol (acetominophen) so the addicts die of liver failure long before they overdose on the codeine.
My wife is clinically addicted to Oxycodone, which she takes for chronic pain related to lupus. She doesn’t get a buzz from it at all, but she IS a real witch whenever she misses a scheduled dose.
Oxycodone is formulated as a time release, so just taking them won’t get you very high. Crushing them, however does defeat the time release, and that’s what the abusing addicts do.
As for me, Vicoden leaves me stupid whenever I take it, so I never did it for more than a day or two after the 3 surgeries that prescribed it for me.
I think the simple answer is that some people are vulnerable to opiate drugs and some aren’t. I shrug them off like they’re potato chips. For some people they’re hideously addictive. For most, somewhere in between.
I’ve had a couple of occasions to push naloxone to cancel a narcotic overdose. The patients that get it tend to wake up real fast and get violent because I just brought their chemical bliss to a screeching halt.
Let’s be clear that what you’re talking about is Oxycontin, a brand name for a high-dose, time-release formulation of oxycodone generally prescribed only for severe chronic pain. The pills are relatively tiny.
Oxycodone itself is also prescribed in immediate-release form, either with or without aspirin or APAP (acetaminophen). Most people are familiar with oxycodone/APAP (aka Percocet), which if you attempted to snort it would probably leave you with a noseful of sticky, snotty sludge and overall feeling pretty miserable about life.
My dear bride recently suffered a compression fracture of the L3 vertebra and she was prescribed Oxycodone. Oxycodone is not time-release. That is Oxycontin. When you crush Oxycontin, and then snort it, you get a high similar to snorting heroin.
Both Oxy drugs are physically addictive and accompanying withdrawal symptoms.
If you just drop Oxycontin or Oxycodone ‘cold-turkey’ you can die.
I say this because when she was first disgnosed with CML, the chemo caused such horrible pain that she was prescribed Oxycontin. She them heard about how horribly addictive it was, and waited until I was out of town on business to stop taking it without her physician’s knowledge. Three days of horrible shaking and nausea later she was no longer addicted, but when the rest of the family was informed we all went ballistic.
When you have REAL severe pain, addiction is a manageable side-effect.
The popular media’s representation of these drugs as ‘too dangerous to use’ is the worst kind of yellow journalism.
In other words, my wife almost killed herself because Rush Limbaugh’s addiction became a cause celebre.
Even now, it makes me angry.
Not at her, but at the thoughtless media.
Babbling talking heads with no thought for the consequences of their pronouncements.
Urrr…
I slammed my thumb in a car door and had to have the nail drained. The Dr. gave me a script for Vicodin. Made me higher than a kite. Took one to get rid of the immediate pain, didn’t take anymore.
Post-surgeries I was given percocet. Didn’t get me high like the vicodin, but did allow/help me to sleep while in pain. I did get IV Fentanyl after my last surgery. That was some good stuff. Still in pain, but didn’t care too much.
I personally can see how you can get addicted to any and all of the above. The high from vicodin and fentanyl was definitely there, but not so much with the percoset for me.