That reminds me of another question. Why do certain painkillers cause hallucinations in some people but not in others? When I had agonizing complications after my daughter was born, the doctor gave me Stadol via IV push. A few minutes later, I said, “I think I’m hallucinating,” to which he famously replied, “If you think you are, then you are.” :smack: For about 25 minutes, I saw flower petals growing out of people’s heads and–cliched but true–a white rabbit, along with other oddities and auditory hallucinations. They distracted me from the pain but didn’t really kill it. A woman I know who said she’s been given Stadol on two different occasions said she had no hallucinations.
If I were to be given Stadol again (no thanks), would I in all likelihood have hallucinations again?
Buzz is the wrong word. I’d call it a warm, glowing, euphoric sensation at its peak. If I could feel like that all the time, I would, so it’s easy for me to see why addiction can be a problem.
A buzz or high I would associate more with pronounced feelings of disassociation or other altered stated of consciousness, like alcohol, pot, cocaine, meth, etc.
The first time I had a narcotic was summer 2010, when I had a weird throat infection that was extremely painful and swollen. The first antibiotic didn’t work, and I ended up in the ER 2 days after starting that, having not eaten or had anything to drink during those 2 days. They gave me morphine to help me out until the steroid could start to work, then 8 hours, IV fluids, and a bunch of diagnostics (including CT) later, sent me home on a different antibiotic and a scrip for Vicodin. I took the Vicodin that day and the next, and by that next day the antibiotic had started working and I didn’t need as much Vicodin as scripted, so I just took one and felt so good I cleaned the whole house and had company over. Good stuff for me.
Since I had a bunch left over, it came in handy later in the year for a series of dental visits. I took one before each visit (I told my dentist that I took one), and the mild anxiety I had just disappeared. Made for much more pleasant visits, so much so that if I need work like that again, my dentist told me he would scrip a tablet for those visits if I ask ahead of time.
I guess I can see how people could get hooked. I’m not a fan of being out of my head, out of control, or whatnot, so I don’t see myself doing more than a little alcohol now and then. I guess that’s a good thing.
I haven’t read the whole thread (yet), but I’d like to remind y’all, that high doses of pain meds over a long period of time may cause you to need a very hefty dose of pain meds should something happen to you (accident, etc.). In that case, one would do well to tell the ER doc that he or she is a recreational drug user (I hate that term. Makes it sound like that’s somehow good for you) and the dosage one is taking and how many at a time.
Even then, the doc might get a little nervous giving a stronger dose of anything (morphine, dilaudid, etc.).
Well I had a nice long post written out, but well…twitchy trigger figure on the back button.
Anyway, three kinds of pills you really associating with getting high from an opiate (not including morphine sulfates or a bunch of other stuff all ready mention)
Vicodin/Lortab - Hydrocodone/ Acetaminophen - Basic opiate painkiller - Prescribed for mild to moderate pain, usually short term. Things like pulled teeth, back strains, the like. Lower risk of addiction in my experience because the dosage is pretty low and hydrocodone doesn’t necessarily have the effect that oxycodone does. If you have any tolerance for opiates, then this probably won’t get you too high for too long. I personally don’t even get really sleepy on them anymore. Decent at killing pain though.
Percocet/Percodan/Various other names- Oxycodone/Acetaminophen or Aspirin -Moderate to Severe Pain- Comes in dosages up 10mg per tab of Oxycodone and several mg of the other component. Much higher risk of abuse. Causes euphoria, sedation, general well-being, or nausea in those who can’t tolerate opiates well. Its like being pretty drunk, but completely relaxed at the same time. You’re giddy and probably somewhat incoherent, but it doesn’t really register that its you being the drunken buffoon. Also can suppress breathing (as all opiates can) and asphyxiation(I guess) is a possibility. Tolerance builds up pretty fast too. 1 pill a time one week will turn in 2 the next week to get the same euphoric feeling.
Oxycontin-The granddaddy of them all-“Hillbilly heroin”- Time released oxycodone in dosages up to 80mg a pill. Notice “time-released”. If you crush the pill and snort it or cook it up for injection, you’re getting basically the equivalent of 8 or so Percocets (minus the competent drug) at once. Super high dependency. Supposed to be prescribed for “break-out” pain in late stage cancer patients, but it has been absurdly overprescribed. All the euphoria of a percocet high heightened to just an unbelievable level. Also the danger of respiratory failure is really imminent. You actually have to force yourself to remember to breath and combine that with the fact that you struggling to stay awake and well you have real trouble keeping yourself alive. Tolerance builds up super fast too when you start to snort or inject. I was, at my worst stage, snorting about 120-140 mgs a night. In retrospect, its a damn miracle I didn’t die. Fortunately, when I began to taper off it, I only had a seizure and wound up in the ICU for a week. Other than the seizure, I didn’t suffer any other detox symptoms.
Just my experience from what I know and learned the hard way.
Yeah, that’s another thing. Maybe I just don’t know what euphoria feels like, but nothing has ever given me that feeling that I can recall.
My husband once took one of my ativans because he thought he was having a panic attack. He described the feeling as euphoric. Pissed me off. He gets euphoria. All I get is No Panic attack, if I take it quick enough.
Euphoria is kinda like…Life is good. Life will always be good. Everything is beautiful. Nothing can and will ever bother you or ruin your day. You are a perfect state of mind. Its the best you can ever feel about yourself or the world around you.
Kind of hard to describe in objective terms, but thats an idea.
Hard to say. I have been given Demerol again and it ended up not working on me. I guess my tolerance over the years ruined that. The hallucinations that I had were due to the length of time I was on the Demerol, so unlikely to be repeated with a one time dosage. You however, seemed to have a reaction to a single dose. I would think that your chances of seeing flower and dancing elephants are quite high. But it’s just a WAG.
But, from a recreational user standpoint, use of these drugs is often in conjunction with other drugs. In my experience, pills are usually combined with alcohol, as they seem to increase the alcohol’s effects. You can get really drunk on just a few beers if you also take a Percy (percocet) or zanny bar (Xanax).
I like my opiates and have tried a few of them, mostly in the hospital either before or after some kind of surgery. I remember lying on the operating room table and watching the doctor inject something into my IV. And then I felt really good. Relaxed, happy, no worries about the surgery to follow. So I asked what it was. Demerol.
I had another injury requiring hospitalization and I was given Dilaudid (hydromorphone) for pain. It made me vomit, but a Gravol chaser took care of that. I didn’t really need the pain control, but the Dilaudid did help pass the time and help me sleep at night. Hospitals are boring and I really just wanted to go home.
When I’ve been in pain, opiates have been wonderful, but I also like the dreamy feeling I get and the way they still the unrest in my brain. If I could find someone selling $5 balloons of heroin as mentioned upthread, I’d probably be a junkie in no time.
Amen Brother. One of my biggest fears in life is that I will get to a point where the drugs aren’t going to work any longer. I am possibly almost obsessive about this, but it really scares me. I have such a concern that I have taken the initiative (with my doctors help) and have cut way down on the amount of pain meds I toss down my gullet on a daily basis. I have cut my morphine use down by 1/2 and my use of percocet by about the same. In conjunction with the meds I use a heating pad, TENS unit and just plain suck up the pain at times. I am 45 and with any luck I will have another 30 or 40 years on this planet. My fear is that I will become so tolerant to the meds that nothing will work when I am 70. Barring some major medical advancement the meds are all that I have. The doctors (and my GP is great, without him I would be in a world of hurt) just seem to be guessing. It is amazing that someone can go to school and train for so many years, yet not have a clue of what is causing my pain. I do understand that this isn’t an exact science, but it would be kinda nice if someone could at least pinpoint the cause of the pain. Perhaps it is just a mental thing, but it would be nice to know why I hurt. And surgeons seem to be nothing more than knife wielding cut monkeys (my apologies to our surgical members here, no offense meant). I am fused in my lower back from L3 to S1 and suffer from FBSS (Failed Back Surgery Syndrome). Surgeons constantly want to cut, although they can really offer no reason for it other than (well open you up and take a look around). They have offered to remove the hardware (screws and rods) but have given me no odds on success other than “it might help”. If any of you medical types here know of something that might help, I am all ears. But at this point the only help seems to be lots and lots of pain meds.
The meds present their own problems. I am not trying to garner sympathy from anyone, but would like to give a few warnings to those here who are suffering from chronic pain and are on a regiment of pain killers for life. These are things that my original doctors never warned me about. They should have but didn’t. Not that it would have made any difference, but finding out when it happens isn’t the way to go.
1: Lethargy. For the last 6 or 7 years my life has been nothing but a fight to stay awake and struggle to be apart of life with my family. I could sleep 12 hours wake up and want to go right back to sleep. Trying to find the energy to participate in family activities was almost impossible. Thankfully my current doctor has worked with me in trying to find a solution, and there isn’t much out there to help. We have settled on a regiment of Adderal (amphetamine) to counter the lethargy. It has renewed my life and I know wake at a decent hour and have the ability to stay awake all day. I am now participating in life instead of wishing I was participating. My doctor really didn’t want to put me on another drug, but there seemed to be no other alternative. I consulted with many pharmacist, read everything I could on the subject and together with my doc decided on this treatment. Be aware of what the narcotics will do to your energy level over time.
2: For men this is vitally important. My original doctor never mentioned this and in my opinion his omission was a grave error. After a few years on opiod pain killers my body stopped producing testosterone. I became even more lethargic, gained weight and my sex drive went below zero. The loss of my sex drive drove me to depression. My doctor at the time must have been sleeping when they covered this in med school, because she seemed to ignore my complaints on this issue. Finally I went to a doctor that identified the problem. Apparently the loss of testosterone production will happen if you take narcotics long enough. I am currently taking TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) and things are back to normal. However my ability to father children is gone. For me this isn’t a big deal as I have enough children, but to those who don’t it is a huge issue. On the benefit side (debit side for Mrs. OBBN) my sex drive is as strong as it was when I was 17. But because of my need for pain meds I am now chained to a life-long use of a hormone. It would have been nice to know this was coming.
I am sorry for the long post and my ranting. This thread seemed like a great place to share some of my experiences and hopefully help some others. To those of you in chronic pain, I understand and I hope that you are able to find the strength to carry on everyday. To those who have someone in their lives that is in chronic pain, please try to be understanding when that person doesn’t have the energy to do something. And just knowing you are there and love them helps as much or more than any pain killer a doctor could give.
Well, OK, but the stuff you can get over the counter in Britain - Paracodol is one of the brands -* is* a combination of paracetemol and actual codeine. I have used both this, in Britain, and prescribed Vicodon (or otherwise-branded equivalents) in the U.S.A., many times, and their effects on me have been very similar. They are quite effective for pain; they are somewhat constipating; but they do not get me in the least bit high, and I am not tempted to take them when I am not in quite severe pain or the sort of severe discomfort that I have found them to be very effective for. (For most pains, if I can’t ignore them, I use ibuprofen.)
The same goes for the pure codeine I was once on. I expect that this was still a relatively low dose, although I am fairly sure it was a good bit larger than the amount of opioid you get in either Vicodin or Paracodol. I am quite prepared to believe that higher doses of codeine would indeed get me high, as no doubt, would hydrocodone in amounts noticably larger than what you can get from two Vicodin, but what I actually took gave me no hint of it.
By contrast, whatever it was that they gave me when I had my colonoscopy did leave me feeling very pleasant for a while, so I do know what it means to get a bit of an opioid high. (I never felt any real craving to experience it again, but I can understand why some some people might.) I do not get any hint of that feeling from Vicodin or Paracodol, presumably because the opioid dose is just too low.
Nah, hydrocodone (active ingredient in Vicodin) is about 5-10x stronger than codeine and much more “fun” (recreational). If anything, House should be on something like Roxicodone or Oxycontin (oxycodone thats available without tylenol). Most of all, hydrocodone doesn’t have a ceiling dose like codeine does (after a certain amount, ~400mg, you can’t metabolize any more codeine into its active form - hydrocodone has no such limit.), so you can keep going up and up in dose, whereas with codeine you likely switch to a stronger painkiller like hydrocodone as your tolerance rises and stronger meds are needed.
Well, ok, but it is the acetominophen in the Vicodin that I am saying would have killed him long ago (and it isn’t even a very effective painkiller in my experience).
Put him on hydrocodone then. That would work for him, I guess, and surely he could get Wilson, or someone, to prescribe it. Taking Vicodin the way he takes it makes no sense.
Why is the acetominophen put in Vicodin anyway? It seems to me it makes it unnecessarily dangerous to pair a potential drug of abuse with one that does not tempt abuse, but can kill you with a quite small overdose. If they are effective together, they could still be prescribed as separate pills. Is it supposed to deter people from abusing the Vicodin? Yeah, that’s bound to work. :rolleyes:
I have plenty of experience with both drugs and the main difference I find is that codeine has more of a brain-muddling effect on me, while Vicodin is better for calming nerves. I’ve used Vicodin a few times when having to do things that make me nervous (eg public speaking) and it works very well. I wouldn’t use codeine for that because it would interfere with my ability to react and think on the spot.
Haven’t really noticed a difference in what they do for pain but it’s been a long time since I’ve taken Vicodin for pain.
If feeling legitimate pain you will most likely not get a “high” from taking these drugs unless you take more than the recommended amount. If you have no pain, or pain that a simple Tylenol or Ibuprofen could resolve, then you will most likely feel a buzz. That is probably why you have not felt one. You’re not abusing the drugs you’re using them for the intended purpose.
Until root canals, I did not know there were alternatives to pain. Blessed be hydrocodone (Vicoden, Percodin)
Then I awoke 06:00 on my 21st with acute appendicitis. Blessed be Demerol.
For 40 years, that was it - no OTC ever did anything.
Then it was osteoarthritis - eventually the Vicodin quit, and it was time for hydromorphone (Dilaudid).
Now it’s morphine.
On a total of 11 occasions, have I had a buzz. The OA started March 2005.
I feel cheated i get stuck with trouble and expense, but get no fun.UNFAIR!!!
I take Hydrocodone-5 (Vicoden) and Acetaminophen 500mg 4 times a day (Prescribed) with no problems. I was concerned about the acetaminophen, and the doctor told me this wasn’t anything to worry about. 3 grams per day of the aceta. is tops though. I don’t think Joey has anything to worry about.
Oh, and I do drink a *lotta *beer daily.
And pulverizing their livers from all that acetaminophen.
I got some Vicodin a couple years ago when I had some dental work, but never took any for that because ibuprofen did the job. I later took one when I had a very painful sinus infection, and got light-headed from it but how much of that was from the Vicodin and how much of it was the infection, IDK. It wasn’t pleasant, that’s for sure. I later took one when I burned my thumb on the oven grate, and it relieved the pain but made me loopy too, and not in a pleasant way.
