I hadn’t realised Vicodin contained paracetamol (acetaminophen) - the way House pops them in I’m amazed he has any liver left!
Why don’t they make pills that are pure hydrocodone? What’s the point of the acetaminophen at all? Is it theoretically intended to prevent abuse? If so, it obviously doesn’t work. All it does is complicate addictions with liver damage.
I guess if my doctor was a world-class genius I could put up with him being almost sociopathic. Besides, on what other show do you get to see people vomit blood, poop explosively, bleed out of their eyes, maybe even poop out of their mouths? Exploding testicles, people!
I like Hugh Laurie a lot. I like the House character, but I think the show sucks. They only have one script, which they use over and over, just substituting some of the proper nouns each time.
Wiki says:
In the U.S., pure hydrocodone and forms containing more than 15 mg per dosage unit are considered Schedule II drugs. Those containing less than or equal to 15 mg per dosage unit in combination with acetaminophen or another non-controlled drug are called hydrocodone compounds and are considered Schedule III drugs. Hydrocodone is typically found in combination with other drugs such as paracetamol (acetaminophen), aspirin, ibuprofen and homatropine methylbromide. The purpose of the non-controlled drugs in combination is often twofold. 1) To provide increased analgesia via drug synergy. 2) To limit the intake of hydrocodone by causing unpleasant and often unsafe side effects at higher than prescribed doses (See Below). In the UK it is listed as a Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Hydrocodone is not available in pure form in the United States due to a separate regulation, and is always sold with an NSAID, acetaminophen or an antihistamine. The cough preparation Codiclear DH is the purest US hydrocodone item, containing guaifenesin and small amounts of ethanol as active ingredients.
It might take the team forever (okay, 40 minutes) to diagnose anything, but House knows how to treat everything. “This condition is so rare there’s only three recorded cases. Give the patient 10 cc’s of something or other and 5 cc’s of some other thing and order a pizza.” Everyone looks at him. “I’m hungry.”
I laugh when they say something like, “give 2cc’s of Atropine”–you’d think the writers would have clued in by now that med strengths come in mg or gms–not cc’s. A dose may well be 1 or 2 cc’s (not Atropine), but it’ not referred to that way, ever. I may give a kid 10cc of elixir, but I say I’m giving 350mg of whatever(have no time to go look up peds dose of tylenol or similar for purposes of illustration). It’s not that hard to get something like that right.
That and the unsecured endotracheal tubes, the ones held on by Scotch tape, and then the ones where they use the mouthguard, but no pt ever has any excess drool or redness around the mouth etc. And hardly anyone coughs upon removal of the tube. There are no nasogastric tubes (true, they are used less frequently, but pts still get them); and they really, really like plasmaphoresis–something relatively uncommon (at least in my experience).
I’d like to see a pt with a history of CHF, arthritis, MI, HTN, NIDDM suddenly display weird psych symptoms and have to figured out–and have it end up being some kind of drug interaction or something. But that might not make for dramatic TV…
I could never get around the fact that homeboy never shaves. Do hospitals really let doctors come to work every day looking like they spent the night puking in a boxcar?
I used to like it. I grew to admire Hugh Laurie’s chops. But it’s losing me fast. My wife still watches. I go to the basement to play guitar.