Now and then I come across articles hailing the therapeutic role of oxytocin, including against drug addiction.
Yet, I remember reading a story about a man fighting his oxytocin addiction and barely managing to get out of it and I wonder if my memory is actually playing a trick on me.
Have you ever heard of oxytocin addiction? And is there such a thing as oxytocin addiction in men?
I think it’s called “falling in love with love”.
I’ve done some searches before addressing the question and I know it’s something like that, but it’s still unclear to me if a man can fall prey to an oxytocin addiction. How would this happen?
Could you have possibly seen someone talk about an Oxycontin(time released oxycodone), or oxycodone addiction?
These are basically the original definition of addictive.
Oh, finally a breakthrough. Your idea makes a lot of sense. The two denominations, oxytocin and oxycontin, must have merged in my mind.
Thank you for bothering to answer my question, although there was nothing really interesting about it. But I’m really fond of the story I’ve mentioned in the OP and the fact that I know exactly what type of addiction the character has to fight is important to me. Thank you again, I appreciate it.
I think grude is right, that the original poster is confusing the naturally-produced hormone oxytocin with the pharmaceutical drug oxycontin/oxycodone.
Edit: And I posted too late. 
in the constant propaganda of the drug war, it’s impossible for most people to even try to understand the difference between dependence and addiction, and to realize that addiction is only a problem when the thing you’re addicted to is either illegal and/or toxic (carcinogenic like smoking, etc).
I’m addicted to Afrin nasal spray. But it’s not a problem because I can buy a bottle legally for $6 at any store, and that lasts me at least 10-14 days. If it were illegal it would probably cost at least $200 for that bottle and nothing is more harmful to your health than jail/prison.
Opiates/opioids are some of the safest drugs out there. You can take them for years and there are no ill effects. Acetaminophen kills so many more people per year it’s ridiculous. Nearly all “opiate related deaths” are people dying from liver failure due to the acetaminophen in vicodin or for mixing them with a lot of alcohol and other drugs, and a small number are because black market street drugs like heroin are impure (if they were legal they’d all be 100% pure and FDA regulated, sold right next to the more extremely more intoxicating tequila). If there’s talc in heroin and that kills someone due to an embolism, it wasn’t the opiate that killed them (but drug dealers are not trying to kill their customers, bad for business).
If i’ve taken a vicodin and a plane falls from the sky, crashes on me and kills me, the government considers my death to be “opiate related” and adds another number to its ridiculous statistics. This is the most important thing people need to understand. The actual number of people who take prescription opiates, don’t mix them with alcohol and other drugs, and actually die from an opiate overdose is extremely small. A few hundred, at most.
Right. And when oxytocin is a natural bodily hormone, none of that applies…
It may be more of a problem than you realize. There are some other threads about addiction to Nasal Sprays and if you look through them, you will see one excellent post where someone explains the way these things work is to reduce the swelling but then it brings on a “rebound effect” where the swelling returns and is more pronounced than before.
Darn! I can’t find that post. It was a great post. I sure wish I could find it so I could give you a link to it.
The point is that the more you use, the more you need to use and you will need to use it at shorter and shorter intervals. If you check my OP in my thread “Warning to all re Nasal Sprays” you will find a site where a doctor (Dr. James Thompson) explains that one patient started using a nasal spray and had to keep using more and more and use them more often until eventually, he was using an entire bottle every day.
My thread is here: Warning to all re Nasal Sprays - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board
So, it may seem to you to not be much of a problem now. That is how it seemed to me. Different people are affected at different rates. But if you find that you have to keep using more and more, I think you may find it really is a problem.
Check this site: Allergies: Stories, News, and Expert Advice
and read the article by Dr. James Thompson
I think you might want to consider seeing your doctor and discussing some kind of treatment plan. Dr. Thompson recommends a plan on that web site.
Good Luck to you.
I found that post I was looking for. It was from elbows:
Here is the explanation:
Decongestants are counter productive because, while they provide relief, they do it by drying up what’s clogging your sinus. Effectively turning non draining snot into gummy bears. What you want is MORE moisture, to assist draining, not less. It does sell more product however.
This really angers me because these sprays seem to solve the problem in the short term. But, in the long term, they actually make the problem worse and cause you to use more and more of their product more often.
That really seems highly unethical to me and putting a warning in microscopic print on the label of the bottle really doesn’t help very much. These products may be legal. but IMO, they really stinks!
I remember seeing a news story about some idiots breaking into a Vet office and stealing oxytocin.
It ended with speculation of a bunch of druggies sitting around with swollen nipples and wanting to hug each other.
Oxycodone, otoh, is one of those drugs you have to jump through insane hoops to get. If the DEA doesn’t make your lif difficult, the pharmacist will.
I use Walgreen’s - they now have another form to fill out (and verify ID, etc) for 3 drugs - I know oxycodone and hydromorphone are named; couldn’t read the third upside down quickly enough).
I get both hydromorphone (break through pain) and morphine (base pain). They are more worried about the hydromorphone than the morphine.
And: these scripts are counted twice - my last refill was delayed 15 minutes because someone put 121 pills in a bottle that was to have only 120.
Good lord, people: have your crisis on your time, not mine - put one pill back and give me the damned bottle!