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I would say most people do not need narcotic pain relief. I have never needed it and I have had some very serious injuries, surgeries and given child birth twice without pain meds. I was induced with pitocin with my first child and still didn't need pain meds or an epidural.
Ibuprofen works for me without that loopy feeling that the narcotics cause.
I was pretty judgmental about narcotic pain relievers till I actually needed it myself. After all, I had had three kids with no pain meds whatsoever (including two births involving pitocin), and had had outpatient surgery and all four of my wisdom teeth removed at one time, without any narcotic pain meds.
Then I tore both my Achilles tendons and found out that sometimes even a very stoic person can be brought to their knees in pain.
This was an interesting experience though. With the first surgery, I said, "No, I don't need Vicodin or any other narcotic pain relief," and my doctor said, "I suggest you get this prescription filled anyway." He knew something I didn't know! Within four hours of getting home, I was struggling with the child proof cap with shaking hands as the pain intensified.
Still - this was VICODIN and clearly it was of the devil, right? So I tried only taking half the prescribed dose - and it didn't work well. Then I tried stretching the hours out between doses - and that didn't work either. Nope - what worked perfectly was to follow the doctor's instructions on dosage and timing.
This was before all the extreme controls on these meds and still, the doctor would only prescribe one week's worth at a time, even though he told me I would probably need two week's worth, though the dosage the second week was lower. This worked fine for me. In fact, I had pills left over, and I had absolutely zero "withdrawal" or "addiction" symptoms.
With the second surgery, I knew the drill and just took the meds as prescribed. Imagine my surprise though when I realized that though the prescription was for a certain number of pills for a week (56 - 2 pills every 6 hours), the pills the pharmacy had given me would run out on a Saturday evening and I couldn't get remainder of the prescription (actually not even the remainder, come to find out) till about noon the next day. This was because in spite of the prescription, the PHARMACY had determined that they would only fill a small portion of it at a time - I think they would only give out 20 pills at a time or something like that, some magic number.
Now I knew from the last go round that you have to take these pills every six hours - you cannot let the pain get the best of you or its' harder to get it back where it belongs. I couldn't and shouldn't run out of pain meds for 20 hours - that was three doses I would miss. And the last thing I wanted to do in agony was try to drive myself to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. In fact, I couldn't drive - the surgery was on my right Achilles tendon. My husband had a business trip he had to take, and had taken care of all my needs and had help coming in while he was gone, but that would mean that I would need to find someone else to go by the pharmacy and pick up my prescription - what a pain, no pun intended!
Long story short, my doctor had to call the pharmacy to verify that yes, I needed this pain medication and please honor the first prescription. Even then, they would only allow enough pills to cover that 20 hour gap - not a single pill more, in spite of the doctor's orders. Personally I thought that was ridiculous. I am NOT an addict. As before, I had plenty of pills left over, which are now locked in our safe in case of some sort of apocalyptic breakdown of society or something!
Like someone else in a post above me pointed out, the pharmacy made me feel like I was a criminal or drug addict. They made me feel ashamed to ask for necessary pain relief for 20 hours. I guess the pharmacy knew better than my doctor did - NOT.
Anyway, I share all that to point out a few things -one of which is that I hope you can get what you need to handle severe pain if you ever experience it. And I hope you will take it. Like I said, even the most stoic, tough person can unexpectedly find themselves in horrific pain that takes the totally by surprise and absolutely knocks the stuffing out of them. I hope you never experience that, but if you do, I can highly recommend vicodin for pain relief!
By the way, it didn't make me feel loopy at all. It made me slightly drowsy and relieved the pain significantly - it helped me get the sleep I needed in spite of pain which, left untreated, would have kept me writhing in the bed for two weeks groaning and gasping. But when I was awake, I didn't feel goofy or disoriented. I was able to carry on entirely normal conversations, watch movies, read, etc - I just didn't have to deal with agony, which was nice.
Regular OTC stuff doesn't work for me. The 5 or 6 times I've required serious pain relief, I'm glad it was narcotic. What I find strange is, the gov tells us the meds are very bad, and then tries to outlaw natural herbal remedies like mitragyna, that have been proven to be a miracle to some people, and 100% safe. So, people stay in pain one way or another, just so senators and congress people look like they care. I understand a shift in thinking is needed, but not the heavy-handed, disingenuous, ill-thought one we suffer currently.
Feds are cracking down heavily on prescription abuse of oxy, which is why parts of the country are now experiencing heroin epidemics. When girlfriend was undergoing radiation therapy for throat cancer a few years back, she was getting the liquid stuff. Very addictive. She's glad to be off it.
There is no doubt that there is an epidemic of narcotic abuse in America.
Many of us who take narcotics for pain relief are made to feel, by all the popular press, that we are some sort of scourge on society. A lot of this has to do with too many "news" outlets looking for anything dramatic to write about, and "drugs" in our society is easy.
Some years back there was an article in the NYT magazine section about people who abuse drugs like Percocet. If you are in severe pain, you might take three or four Percocet each day to cope. If you are an addict, you might take 25 or 30 Percocet each day to feed your addiction. BIG Difference.
I take narcotic pain medicines for a fractured spine, compliments of Uncle Sam--indeed, protecting your right/freedom to post your thoughts on sites like CD. The drug knocks down the pain, but it certainly doesn't eliminate it. I don't walk around in a stupor, or act like a crazed fool, or otherwise demonstrate material outward symptoms (other than walking with a slight limp because the nerves serving my left leg are damaged by bone fragments in my spine). Basically you would never know that I take pain medication.
In recent months, the restrictions which have been put in place due to abuse have become quite onerous. Paper prescriptions, monthly visits to the Dr., 30 day supply, no renewals, random drug testing, and depending on your pharmacist, the "suspicious" look that you get when you submit the prescription. It is a very cumbersome and uncomfortable process--because too many people abuse something that is needed to improve quality of life for some people.
The answer? More of what we currently have. Maybe increase the price, but that would only force recreational users into other drugs--meth and heroine, which I read gives them the same 'high'. Drug testing for welfare and other social program benefits. Tighter inventory control. Remove "incentive payments" to doctors from pharmaceutical companies for "pushing" their drugs. And maybe it has to do with a much bigger picture involving society, jobs, income distribution and poverty. If you wake up each day with no hope, popping a couple of pills to make it all go away is a cheap outlet.
And the irony....one of the side effects...perhaps the biggest...is that taking narcotic pain medicine disrupts your ability to...well...poop. Watching the evening news the other night, I see that a drug company (imagine that!) has come up with a drug to "solve" this problem. Don't deal with the abuse problem (from which the drug companies make a fortune); develop a drug ($$$) to deal with the side effects! Only in America.
I think they are given out too freely. I had surgery Friday, told the doctor I did not need the narcotic pain killer,he sent it anyway. Told the pharmacist I didn't need it, nope they sent it home with me anyway. While I am in pain, ibuprofen is doing a fine job of relieving it.
So now I am stuck with a bottle of stuff to get rid of.
you are fortunate that you can take Ibuprofen and Naproxen and the other NSAIDS.... As someone with a fairly significant issue with my gut, I can not.... The last time I took a single Naproxen, with a full meal AND a glass of milk, I paid for it for the next week or more.....
and as someone with congenital issues in my hips and knees, adequate pain relief is difficult to find.... particularly now.... thank you druggies!! tylenol just doesn't cut it.....
I find it hard to believe that people actually throw away those drugs. They are very useful unless you have a tendency toward addiction, of course.
I had a roommate who had cancer. Her doctor gave her 100 Percocet. Even though she was a recovering alkie, she did not like the drugs. She took what she needed but after her first chemo the lymph node causing her pain shrunk and she didn't need them anymore.
However, we had an old stump in the front yard of the rented house and I wanted to have a garden there. I was in my late 40s at the time and had a desk job and as the only healthy adult in the house, I was going to have to get it out. So, every day for a week, I came home, took a percocet, and went out and worked on that sucker till I had it out of the ground deep enough to fill in soil and plant flowers. Young people notice pain. Older people notice the absence of pain. Although I had no acute pain, the percocets took away the normal stiffness and discomfort the body experiences at that age and I was able to do the physical labor required.
I know that this type of use of drugs is probably not going to be met with approval by anyone in the medical field, but I am just not the addictive type, and those painkillers worked as a tool to enable me to do physical work that otherwise might not have been possible.
So now I am stuck with a bottle of stuff to get rid of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by randomparent
I think that proper disposal of unused narcotics is a genuine problem, because even in a large metropolitan area, I'm finding it difficult to arrange for the remainder of a post-surgical Oxycodone prescription.
I think they are given out too freely. I had surgery Friday, told the doctor I did not need the narcotic pain killer,he sent it anyway. Told the pharmacist I didn't need it, nope they sent it home with me anyway. While I am in pain, ibuprofen is doing a fine job of relieving it.
So now I am stuck with a bottle of stuff to get rid of.
All you had to do was refuse the prescription again, no one can force you to fill a prescription you do not want. I don't see how you had issues with this.
I would say most people do not need narcotic pain relief.
Who's "most people"? That's kind of a far-reaching statement, don't you think? After I had my wisdom teeth removed, Percocet was the only thing that kept me sane. The pain was unbelievable.
Having said that, I did really like taking the Percocet. After two weeks, during my follow up visit to the oral surgeon, I asked for a refill of my Percocet prescription. The oral surgeon politely told me that Tylenol would do me just fine from there on out..
It's not the process but the limited times and places that create difficulties; however, I thank you for being an ass about it. It would be much easier if I could just return it to the pharmacy at my convenience. I understand completely why some people just flush the damn stuff down the toilet, but I know better.
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