A friend fell off a horse a couple of weeks ago and was given vicodin (hydrocodone 5/500, I think) for pain. After a day or two, she started having pretty horrible nausea, which stopped as soon as she started taking something other than the vicodin, making us think that there’s a connection. Now she’s got a cold and cough and was given some prescription cough syrup, which looks like it contains hydrocodone. Any WAGs as to the likelyhood that she’ll have similar reactions to this stuff?
Thanks!
Did she eat with it? hydrocodon, Lortab, and Vicodin will all cause nausea on an empty tummy. If it is, in fact, the hydrocodone she was alergic to, the cough syrup may trigger similar symptoms. However, the ammount in cough syrup is much less than the 5mg (I believe that’s what the 5 stands for, somebody correct me if I’m wong) in the pill.
nausea is a recognized side effect of vicodin, I’m not sure what the crossover rate for different preparations is, but it’s a real possibility. Are you sure that the cough syrup isn’t codeine?
Vicodin made me horribly vomity the time I tried it, I threw up the pills half digested and vomited every half-hour for the next three hours. I can’t take anything else in the opiate family either, except for Codeine (my experience with morphine was too wretched for words). I list it as an allergy on medical forms. A Doper once explained to me why Codeine was less likely to make a person nauseous, but I don’t remember the explanation.
Opioids are notorious for decreasing gastro-intestinal motility. The stomach slows waaaay down on emptying, the bowels stop pushing things through, etc.
As a result, nausea is common, along with constipation.
Individual reactions vary, as does the reaction of an individual over time, or to different opioids, or to different doses of the same opioid.
This is incorrect, most of the cough medicines that contain Hydrocodone have 5mg or more per 5mL. One of the more popular prescribed ones, Tussionex, contains 10mg Hydrocodone per 5mL… If I remember correctly.
Is 5 mL the standard dose? So it’s the same ammount of actual medicine?
One teaspoon is very close to 5mL (it’s actually 4.93mL, or close), so yes, that’s the usual dosing amount.