I know someone who has a prescription of very long standing for codeine as a prophylactic against migraine.
He will have episodes (I guess you’d call them) when he will be capable of being just breathtakingly mean and/or vicious. Often these times correspond with times when I know he has just filled a prescription. The rest of the time, he’s very sweet and amiable.
Mulling this over, I am put in mind of someone else I knew long ago in my checkered past, who IIRC did not have a prescription for codeine, but he took a lot of it anyway. I only ever saw him on days when he wasn’t “medicated,” because when he was, he wouldn’t let me in. Everyone else who knew him said that the codeine made him be just awful, and best stayed away from. Aside from a manageable amount of OCD, he too was very nice to be around the rest of the time.
Assuming that we can rule out “grumpy because of pain,” and “grumpy because of codeine withdrawal”:
I am wondering, does anyone here also have anecdotal evidence of this happening to others? Is it a “thing?” Does anyone have any idea of the mechanism that would be involved?
Personally, I’ve never seen it make anyone mean. Even taking, um, waaaaay more then necessary, it puts people in a pretty relaxed state. Obviously I can’t speak for everyone, just the people I know of.
Now, I’m not sure why you’re automatically ruling out grumpy because of pain. It has been known to cause hangovers and rebound headaches/migraines. If I have to take opiate painkillers for something I’ll often times find myself taking migraine meds (Maxalt/Imitrex) the next day. FTR, my migraine doctor (a neurologist) specifically doesn’t prescribe narcotics because it can cause rebounds.
Another possibility is that if he’s getting 30 pills on the first of the month and out of them a week later there’s a good chance he’s not getting much sleep so he could just be tired that whole time. Combine tired with coming down (from being high) with headache and it could make for someone in a crappy mood for a few days, especially if they’re prone to being in a crappy mood.
Two more thoughts before I hit submit.
1)He could be drinking along with the codeine. That’s very common. Drinking with opiates in your system makes you really drunk (and really high). They have a multiplier effect. Is he a mean drunk.
2)Is it possible that he’s selling the pills and buying something else or just trading them for something else?
Wow … I never thought about that. A person’s natural inclination might be to be nasty, imperious and insulting to everyone for no particular reason (or, well, reasons potentially completely unconnected to the victim) and are only holding it in through sheer force of will.
Kinda frightening to contemplate, but I can totally see it. I guess for my own sanity —
(he loses it completely if I ever try to talk to him about it, and then I feel dysfunctional because I am “not allowed” to stand up for myself.) —
for my own sanity, I can try to look at it as an indication of the Herculean effort he must be making the rest of the time to be civil. And work on that “water off a duck” thing that other people can do.
This is not a boyfriend or anything, just someone I must be around frequently.
It makes me mean, mean as hell and is one of the reasons why I can’t take it anymore. It also makes me feel like I have bugs crawling under my skin. Instead of getting relaxed and sleepy, I get nervous and irritable as well as hyper sensitive to light, noise and touch.
When I stop taking it I will scratch myself bloody because of the itching.
No only do I get mean but it’s irrational as well. I cussed out a store clerk for telling me to have a nice day because who the fuck was he to tell me what kind of day to have?
I told a man on the street if he looked at me one more time I would rip his face off and shove it up his ass.
I cussed out my friend’s husband for answering the phone when I called her. I wanted to talk to her, not him, and if he knew she wasn’t home then he shouldn’t have answered the phone. This was before CallerID and that he would have no way of knowing who was calling and why was irrelevant to me, the SOB should not have answered the phone.
I finally said something to my doctor when I had to leave my office. I wanted to stab all my co-workers to death because their damn breathing was getting on my nerves. The noise was deafening, making me crazy, I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or scream because I just couldn’t take it anymore.
I wasn’t taking it for pain, it was in the cough medicine I was taking for bronchitis.
I wonder if this man’s doctor knows that the codeine is making him mean. As soon as I told my doctor that I was getting mean he nodded his head and said no more codeine for me. I’ve told other doctors I can’t take codeine and why they never seem surprised so I assume they have seen it before.
I don’t know about mean and vicious, but I’ve had codeine and similar prescription painkillers make me feel irritable. Not every time, but occasionally.