This.
My husband was prescribed it when he had dental surgery a few years ago. He took it and had no noticeable relief. He didn’t become sleepy nor dopey.
OTOH whenever I’d had to take it I become sleepy, dopey, and everything in between.
I don’t get high from either Vicodin or Oxycodone, both of which I’ve taken following surguries. I do, however, get very itchy. I suspect I’m allergic to it.
I like opiates because in the right dose, they can make me a lot more productive. Hydrocodone seems to work best for this especially if it is timed release. A little odd I suppose but then the amphetamines I take for ADD sometimes put me to sleep.
However people vary widely in their propensity for addiction - as has been observed. The only thing I have ever had a nearly unbreakable addiction to was nicotine. I think opiates are pleasant enough but only about as much as the first few minutes of a nice hot bath. The bonus is that you get more than just a few minutes of pleasure.
I did however find Ultram to be extremely addictive - so much so that I couldn’t even wean myself off of it without getting very upset and agitated. I finally had to take an opiate to get off it w/o withdrawal. Then stopping the opiate was no problem at all.
I’ve wondered the same thing…for some reason I never get addicted to substances. I can’t even get hooked on cigarettes.
I can, however, get addicted to gambling or porn.
Oxycodone’s about as big a deal as booze, or nicotine, or cocaine, or porn, or gambling, or shopping. People use those things all the time without it turning into a big hairy deal, but other people develop very destructive addictions to them, and the difference is in the people themselves.
Funny, I’ve got a bottle of it sitting on my desk here, which was originally prescribed in . . . November of last year. So that must have been for my gall bladder surgery. I still have some from my appendectomy 11 months prior as well. I have taken it once or twice for a headache or to try to get to sleep. It was neither pleasurable nor particularly sleep-inducing. In fact it seemed to disturb my sleep so while I felt dopey and uncoordinated, I also didn’t rest deeply.
Tussionex cough syrup is awesome if I’m having coughing fits in the night, but other than that I don’t think opiates really do it for me. I recall codeine doing nothing for my intense throat pain when I had mono, and keeping me up all night as well (quite a feat for a mono patient!)
My mother (70 yrs old) has been on this stuff (and/or generic variations) for years. She is CLEARLY addicted and it DOES affect her functioning (slurred speech, excessive sleeping, inability or decreased ability to handle her own care and feeding, etc…)
I also have reason to believe she is taking more than she should (supposed to be every 12 hrs, as needed, but somehow, she ran out of what should have been a 2 week supply in less than a week :dubious:…I know this since she fell and broke some bones a few mths ago and ever since I have been rather intimately involved in advocating for her, including taking possession of all her meds at the hospital…she like to went NUTS when I refused to give her her old meds after they changed her meds and dosages around, and a HUGE aspect of it was that she wanted her pain pills since the new ones “just don’t work as well”…despite being the SAME drug minus the aspirin 
Thing is, I really think, she just wanted them so she could have a larger supply and “hide” her consumption levels…her tactics were JUST like any other addict in trying to secure their fix :().
I made her an appointment with a new primary care Dr. for this week and will be going with her. I really want an answer to WHY she is even ON this shit. Yes, she’s “old”. Yes, she has diabetes, mild arthitis, and other health issues and is on 8 other prescriptions. But she has gone downhill, physically AND mentally FAST in the last few years and from what I can discern from the records, these pain meds have a lot to do with it. :mad:
As for me, only time I have done such drugs was after a wisdom tooth extraction. They gave me Dimerol, and I said to myself, “WHOA! I can SEE how people get addicted to this shit!” I was still in pain but I didn’t care. I took the last few recreationally and then wisely avoided all such substances ever after.
From the responses above, can we conclude that folks like Rush Limbaugh who do all sorts of illegal things to get Oxy–even when they have a perfectly good prescription for pain relief–are crushing the pills and taking them for psychotropic effects? Of does taking it regularly just do it for some people?
FWIW, I’ve been prescribed both Oxy and Vicodin in the past, and my experience is pretty much the same as those above. It worked for pain a bit better than Ibuprofin–both when it was prescribed and when I’d take a pill or two for a headache month’s later. There was certainly nothing like euphoria.
Then again, I don’t like alcohol for the same reason, so maybe intoxication just isn’t my thing.
I posted my comment just before InterestedObserver. Thank you for sharing, and I certainly did not intend to disrespect your mother.
Understood. Thing is, my mother doesn’t drink or do “drugs”…always been very much opposed to that. But she IS a classic addictive personality (smoking like a chimney, drinking her diet coke constantly (diet since she developed diabetes and could no longer drink regular) and otherwise just very habituated to her “routines” and habits.)
She sees her pain meds as just like any of her other prescriptions and resents any implication that she is a JUNKIE, but she clearly IS and needs them to a degree far beyond any other medication.
Fact is, she gets stoned and sits on the couch watching tv and smoking and drinking diet coke and doesn’t eat or clean or do ANYTHING else unless forced to. She begged off on both her grandson’s recent HS graduation and her granddaughter’s birthday…after being invited and seeming thrilled, she called up last moment and begged off. I expected it. Same old shit. Sorry to harsh your buzz, mom. Yeah, I have her number. And I intend to do my best to help her, even if she hates me for it 
p.s. I can “disrespect” my mother enough for the both of us.
So you’re saying your mom isn’t getting high in the Robert Downey, Jr. sense–she’s just pretty much out of it via the meds she’s taking and likes it that way?
Sorry, mate. I hope your upcoming doctor visit goes well.
Oxy is a bigger deal now than before because of its confluence with the use of cheap (black tar) heroin coming from Mexico that has surged recently. Someone who has started smoking the heroin will start smoking the pills when it runs out. (Or vice versa.) It’s common for teens to get the pills from their parents’ medicine cabinets, and once they learn that it’s a viable substitute, they find ways to buy the pills on the street (about $45 each, or so), or across the border.
Addiction stemming from legitimate prescription–as far as I know–hasn’t become any more of a big deal than it has always been.
I’ve never done heroin so I don’t know how valid the comparison is, but I was always under the impression that it was qualitatively different. For example, before heroin, supposedly there were many people who were addicted to smoked opium but still managed to lead productive lives. For whatever reason, that doesn’t seem to be possible with heroin.
It’s possible with heroin, too. I know a couple of recovering opioid addicts, and both of them explained that–because of other issues (depression, in their cases)–they could function (in school and work) only when they actually were using.
What brings an addict to crash are as much the means and circumstances of obtaining the drug as the physiological effects of the drug itself. Both of these guys were dealing in order to pay for the habit, and they got caught–one in heroin, the other in doctor script pads for Oxy. The easier it is to get the drug–and the more socially acceptable it is to use it–the easier it is to lead a “productive” life.
Of course, eventually, by the time someone is spiking, they’re not functioning at all, and they don’t even try to.
I’ve been prescribed Vicodin several times and it doesn’t do jack for me. When I got it back in July for my back injury, the Doctor looked rather alarmed when I gave her a dirty look and said “it really doesn’t do anything for me”. I figured she thought I was fishing for something stronger, so I let it drop and took the stip.
But frankly, I would have rather had Tylenol-3’s. Codeine does wonderful things for me.
Bottom line is that different drugs do different things to different people. There are a couple of other drugs I’ve been prescribed over the years - can’t think of the names off the top of my head, but I’d know 'em when they were named - that would make me say “Sorry, doesn’t do jack for me. Give me something else.” Not because I want stronger, but because it doesn’t affect me like it affects others.
Probably not allergic, itchiness is a very common side effect of opiate use.
And just to add to the discussion–oxy can also be crushed and injected, with a high very similar to heroin. If anything, it’s a little “better” because you know exactly what dose and purity you’re getting unlike with drugs bought on the street. When I was strung out, I used the two interchangeably depending on what was easier to get.
Then there are people like me, who had to taper from taking an eighth of a teaspoon. Scared me to death. Then again, I’m very opposed to altered states.
I’ve never been on either Vicodin or OxyContin (though I’ll probably get some when I get my wisdom teeth out), but my brother on Vicodin was highly amusing.
He would have a perfectly normal conversation with you and then 2 minutes later have no idea that any interaction had taken place. It didn’t make him act overtly loopy, but he couldn’t keep a train of thought. I put a Simpsons episode on for him the night after he got home from the oral surgeon and he got frustrated and asked me to turn it off because he couldn’t tune in long enough to keep the thread of the story. He got off the stuff as soon as he could stand it.
Oxycodone is the generic name of the drug in “Oxycontin”. Oxycontin is just formulated into an extended release form (hence why people crush them). While Oxycodone is also available in immediate release forms, such as Percocet, Percodan, Roxycet, Oxycodone IR, etc. The “high” is similar since they are both opiates and work on the same receptors in the brain. The main advantage to heroin is that it is more lipophillic so the dose crosses the blood-brain barrier faster allowing a faster onset of action, a higher peak, but a shorter duration.
Actually, this is not true, opiates are not one of the substances you can die from while going through withdraw. The withdraw symptoms might make you WISH you were dead, but the withdraw isn’t actually life threatening.
Opiates are one of those substances that can affect people different ways, and the way they effect them is different at times. If you are in pain, the opiates will normally help the pain, but if you are not in pain, people will normally have more of the euphoria with them. There are also some people who really get the euphoria, and some who don’t really feel anything from them at all. It all depends on the individual.
As for the types of opiates, they all do the same thing, the only real difference in effect is the potency of them. However, Codeine is slightly different. It is metabolized into its active form (Morphine) in the liver, and there is a ceiling effect where the liver just can’t metabolize it fast enough, and you won’t get any more of the “opiate” effect (interesting though, codeine works as an anti-tussive as the parent compound, and doesn’t require metabolism)
The doc prescribed Oxycodone for my back pain. It says to take 1 - 2 pills per day.
Pfft.
I have a very high tolerance for narcotics. Doses that would knock a linebacker down barely take the edge off for me.
Basically, for me, oxycodone doesn’t relieve that pain, it just makes it so that I don’t care about how much it hurts.
I should also add that I become rather forgetful, so I can’t take 'em at work (where most of my pain occurs). It’s either forgetfulness or “I don’t give a fuck-ed ness.”
Whichever, it doesn’t make for a good workflow.