I also had it (vicoden) prescribed to me after my hernia surgery. There is quite a nice buzz to it, but I really felt embarassed when my friends and family would come and wish me well and I was too stoned to really realize what they were saying to me. And it’s really hard as it is to take a dump after hernia surgery, but the pills did not help one bit. I would break out into major sweats trying to drop a log, and usually to no avail. It was no fun.
racosun: that’s how my vicodin addiction started, after a hernia operation. Regarding pinching a loaf: I was in so much pain and popping so many, I don’t think I ate anything more than a slice of bread per day so there wasn’t much to go. The doctor had foreseen poopy problems and had also prescribed stool softener, although IIRC those are also sold over-the-counter.
It wasn’t too bad, though; one of the coming-on effects of Vicodin (when I know it’s working) is that I’ll have to take a dump. In my hazier days, I would imagine that the Vicodin would pass through me like butter and be floating in the bowl when I looked. Hasn’t happened yet, but give it time.
–greenphan
In addition to the fine medical explanation by the M.D.s and the personal experience of the addicts, my experience in dealing with codine addicts is that it drastically affects them socially in dishonest behavior in seeking the drug though legit and illegit channels.
Agreed. I’ve had a few friends who went through bouts of addiction to narcotic painkillers, including a ex girlfriend who had extensive dental surgery after a car accident and suffered horrible pain for 4 months.
Though Vicodins and Vicoprofens are relatively low-dosage, they’re actually harder to find on illegal drug circuits because they don’t really change hands for that much money; hence, they’re not worth most drug dealer’s time. And while there are unethical doctors who will write prescriptions for anything you ask for (or don’t ask for: I once went to a physican for insomnia and wound up getting a prescription for 10 mg. Valiums that were worthless to me) most doctors are very careful about giving out controlled substances. The end result, at least as far as I’ve seen, is that Vicodin and Percocet addicts wind up graduating to more potent strength drugs like Oxycontin, usually rationalizing it on economic terms-----“Why should I pay 5 dollars for a 7.5 mg Percocet when I can pay 25 dollars for a 80 mg. Oxycontin?”----which just furthers their addiction and leads to more selfish and antisocial behavior, not to mention illegal activities.
I have a painful disease with pain levels the same as end stage cancer except I have mine everyday for years, over seven years actually, and not one time have I ever stolen, borrowed and not returned, robbed, burgled, mugged, threatened, or killed anyone when I was out of meds bc my Dr won’t give me the amount I need. When I’m out, I lay there and suffer. Yes there are a few junkies that go out and hurt ppl for drug money, but they are a minority, not all of us, not even close to most of us, the government uses the media to make it sound worse and braibwashes ppl into treating us bad and acting like they are better than us, when in fact I’m probably better spiritually than most anyone here. When my dogs ran out of food and husband was being a jerk and wouldnt give me money I only had enough to either feed the dogs or make myself unsick. I choose to feed the dogs and suffered crying on the couch for days. I could have let them go hungry for a night and my husband would have fed them in the morning but they are my kids so I take care of them before me. I donate to charity, when I drop the money off I always think to myself this money could be a day that I won’t have to suffer, but I donate it anyway!!! I don’t take out my suffering and run and and rob and steal from others making them suffer for me, I lay on my couch crying and do my suffering myself, Its my illness, noone else’s, I would shoot myself in the head before I ever made someone else suffer for me to get better. I make sure my family is taken care of before I care for me. These junkies need to realize they made their own problems, they should lie down and suffer, not pass the problem on stealing and hurting other people, if we could get them to stop being immature and do their own suffering for their own mistakes then it would be a lot easier for sick people like me to get the relief we need from drs so that we don’t have to buy more meds on the street. This is the only country that let’s drs get in trouble for writing too much even if noone even got sick on the doses given to them. Most other countries let their drs make the decisions about the amount someone needs. In England I was given 5 times the amount I got here because they don’t have the stigmas and brainwashing we do here. They make sure their ill patients have enough to go to work comfortably as long as they can unless they can’t work even with the pain meds, then they go on disability. Here we waste tax dollars paying disability for people that COULD work if they were given enough to provide therapeutic relief given their condition and tolerance. The toxic and lethal doses increase with tolerance so that’s no excuse but they use it as one anyway. The usa is the worst developed country in the world to be sick in everyday.
This is not true, not all pain med users turn into evil vampire criminal thieves whether they are sick or not. The govt uses the media to brainwash the public into thinking ALL of us do and make ppl treat us like they are better than us. The media never reports how many lives the meds save or how many lives could be prevented from being taken if the dea would leave drs prescribe what they want. If someone wants high they will get it one way or another, we might as well let them get it from a Dr. The dea scares drs into not prescribing and or underprescribing to patients with a tolerance and even extreme painful diseases. Many ppl kill themselves cause they can’t handle the pain, but the media doesn’t report how many lives were saved by giving someone enough to provide relief for their situation, they only report deaths and overdoses, reporting the good facts is boring to them. Drs are scared to even write out enough meds for someone with cancer or other painful illnesses, they try and get away with writing as little as possible cause they can get in trouble for writing too much to a person with a high tolerance even if none of their patients ever had an od or got hurt, so sick ppl in my situation don’t get the relief they need, partly due to the govt, and partly due to addicts taking up the monthly amount a Dr writes. Drs don’t get in trouble when one of their patients off themselves from not being able to take the pain anymore, they don’t care if they off themselves cause they don’t get in troubke for that, only for writing too much, no trouble for underwriting or not treating at all.
They dont get in trouble if someone dies they can just say they had mental probs, they worry more about protecting their own licenses than their patients lives. If they could write the amount they know will give the patient enough relief it not only saves their life but lessons the amount of crime on the streets from ppl getting robbed or murdered for drug money. If they gave them enough to be comfortable many like me on disability could go back to work and pay taxes instead of wasting them, it would also lower gang violence and save the lives of innocent people caught in the crossing or mugged and killed at random who never even.thought about touching drugs, but noone reports that those lives could be saved. The dea needs to leave drs alone so that the only deaths are from those who took the risk of taking the meds and no innocent lives would be lost.
On the bright side, most of the people who are going to be serious pain patients in the next few years are going to be the idiots who keep insisting on this attitude from the DEA - that is to say old people.
There will be a certain karma in their suffering.
You have my real sympathy me171. I have heard a lot about this oh-no-not-opioids attitude from American (and Italian oddly) doctors.