Hydrocodone/Vicodin

Oxy is more potent and more popular (if you can get them anymore). Fentanyl and morphine are stronger, as is heroin. I'm not sure if demerol is used anymore. Everyone has a different feeling from them. Some get hyper... some get tired. Some get really nauseous. But, enough get euphoric on it that it's a problem...combined with rapid tolerance building and depression, isolation, and so on.

OP, you're probably only swallowing one or two at a time. People carking it are most likely crushing, filtering and shooting up a bunch of them. (And the type of person who's going to do that is also likely to be a polydrug user who uses substances that potentiate the opiate's effects)

Obviously I'm not recommending you take more than the prescribed dose, btw!

Hydro/Norco/Vicodin/Vicoprophrine are all like being dipped in a warm, loving bath of wonderful.

Oxycodone is even fucking better.

The problem is, that the DEA is cracking down on doctors who prescribe them. This is making it exponentially harder for dealers to get a hold of the pills. No one will prescribe them anymore.

So the dealers are getting Fentanyl patches. Fent is very, very potent. Making fake pills with fent (which is also made in Mexico and taken here) is very dangerous. More than in tiny pin-point drop could cause someone to overdose. So, you make a batch of pills, you don't mix the material enough, and one pill gets 10x the amount of Fent. Whoever takes that pill dies. It happens every single day now, many times a day.

So, the unintended consequence of the DEA cracking down on doctors is this EXPLOSION of deaths from opioids. Literally, thousands upon thousands are dying because of an action taken by the DEA. It's mind boggling. This is not bullshit. It's 100% true.

It's why we lost Prince, and Patton Oswald's wife, Tom Petty, Carrie Fisher, Eric Bolling, Jr, Lil Peep, and rumor has it, Dolores O'Riordon. And it is very possible that I will die from it. Anyone who is buying opioid drugs from a dealer will eventually die if they don't stop. Because eventually the dealer is going to either knowingly or unknowingly be selling fake Oxy that is Fent pressed.

I've gotten pills with fent "hot spots" about 5 times. One time, I was sitting in McDonalds, and it made me forget my name, and I started grasping for air. One time at work, I almost collapsed and was again unable to breathe for about 20 seconds.. One time eating with my friend. I have been very, very lucky. It won't hold out.

Just to the people who come here to engage, and have interesting information and opinions- thank you. You provided me with lots of fun here.

Maybe it's time to stop.

Get thee to rehab R4. We want you to live.

And also, R4, Ambien used to give me "hugs from Jesus" warmth and comfort but I am almost off it completely now. Not quite the situation you are in. Not the danger. But I just want you to know there is happiness again after the comfort of drugs. It seems to come back naturally.

I watched a show where they crumbled oxy into a piece of aluminum foil, then put a bic lighter underneath and inhale the fumes. Like poor man's freebasing? Same show where married couple doing this, wife ods/dies next to him in bed. He calls 911, then does another hit before EMTs come to cope. States that legalize marijuana decrease opioid usage and deaths by 25%.

Was prescribed Vicodin for a debilitating injury several years ago. It was very helpful, and enabled me to feel good enough to get physical therapy. I was on it for four months, but was happy to stop, because it made me forgetful.

I didn't find it addictive. Only a weak person would get hooked on it.

It was a lifesaver, though.

All of it can cause constipation or the worst case - impacted faeces. Then you need to go to the ER and they have to go in there with a roto-rooter and get the faeces out.

You should take Metamucil and Colace with opiates. And prunes, fiber, etc. But don't get too scared. I didn't poo for 6 days after my surgery and then I just kept drinking prune juice and taking so much Metamucil and Colace that when I finally had to go, it was Hiroshima in that bathroom.

Hiroshima? Maybe you mean Krakatoa or something similar. Unless your poo is irradiated. If so, then please disregard my post.

I said Hiroshima!

R4 You should have used one of those instances to get help especially the workplace incident. I had a colleague collapse in our bathroom, he was freebasing his dying mother’s used fentanyl patches. He admitted his problem, the company were very supportive and he is now clean and back to work. I wish you well.

I find it so incredibly sad that so many people are so unhappy they need to resort to drugs to feel good or feel anything sometimes. Life is very hard for us all isn’t it.

[quote]the unintended consequence of the DEA cracking down on doctors is this EXPLOSION of deaths from opioids

I'm at the point where I don't believe it's unintended anymore. I think it's fully intended. I think our government wants us dead, and probably only because they know it's a huge distraction from what they're really doing to the country. Keep everyone high, scared and/or dealing with unexpected deaths and you can do whatever you want.

Good luck to you, and try to get some help if you can. Don't let this beat you, please.

[quote]Only a weak person would get hooked on it.

That's not how it works, genius.

One of the worst things about our culture is that people truly think their own made-up, completely invented opinions about science and medicine are fact, while ignoring actual facts that are easily obtainable online.

I hurt my back a couple months ago. It was painful and I had a difficult time walking/moving around for several weeks. But I wasn't in agony. I just wanted to get past it so I could get back to the gym. Anyway, I finally went to my doctor because I was getting impatient for it to heal...also to make sure it wasn't a more serious problem than a muscle injury.

Without even examining me, my doctor took out her prescription pad and asked me if I wanted Oxy. I was stunned. I said, no, I just want to know what's wrong with my back.

She's a very good doctor at a great hospital, so she's not shady. But it made me reflect on the opioid crisis. I think doctors are much too quick to prescribe a pill for a problem that could be resolved without medication.

It’s a tough one. Black market drugs made by god know who containing god knows what are clearly terrible and unfortunate. But doctors prescribing this medication to people and letting people walk around, go to work, drive a car, care for kids zonked out on opioids can’t happeb either. Nobody deserves to die from a a badly mixed pill but nobody deserves to be prescribed opioids indefinitely either. I’m not sure there is a perfect solution or even a middle ground.

I have a fairly high resistance to just about everything. I don’t even drink alcohol anymore because after 4 drinks I feel nothing so it’s a waste of my money. But when I fractured my spine and was prescribed a fentanyl patch I spent 5 days slumped over barely able to sit up straight. They switched to to the very lowest dose and I couldn’t stay awake. It was terrifying I was fighting to keep my eyes open because I was afraid I would stop breathing in my sleep. I pulled it off and it took me 3 days to feel vaguely normal again, day 2 and 3 I had that dizzy feeling and reaching for the remote felt like it took an hour, all my reactions were slowed. It was a really scary, out of control feeling. Nothing at all like the Jesus marshmallow orgasms I had always heard opiates provide. My only take away was that I can see why they are used in palliative care. Even if the patient isn’t in pain it would make dying much easier and a high dose would just put the patient into a semi coma totally unaware of what’s happening. Hopefully I won’t see an opioid again until I’m on my death bed.

I'm really susceptible to pain meds, so when I had surgery I was able to get by on just 1/2 pill of norco for pain. I have some left over which I still take about once every two months when my surgery site acts up again, and yes, they really screw with your perception of time passing, they slow your breathing, make you forgetful. But I also get the bliss from them and it's scary. There are days when I think that so much shit has gone down I should just take a norco to relax.

And I literally was only prescribed 30 pills and have only taken 15 over the course of two years. So easy to get hooked on this.

R4, you are too bright and self aware not to get help. Please give it some serious thought.

[r16] who is your doctor? What city are you in?

In 2007 I had an incredibly painful back spasm and the doc at student health (I was in grad school) actually gave me 30 oxycodone and 30 flexaril. It's amazing how things have changed.

I took them "as directed" - never having taken either drug before - and I was such a zombie, I couldn't go to class. I could barely type an email to my professors about why I couldn't go to class. It took 30 min to type it out.

The dose at the time was something like 3 10mg flexaril per day + 3 10 mg oxy per day for 10 days. Insane! When I received pre-op oxycodone in 2016, he gave me 8 with no refills... and actually just hydrocodone 5-325. 8! Who gives 8??

That's odd. My prescription was 1 or 2 hydrocodone 5-325 every six hours, so a bottle of 30 pills was ostensibly for five days. Eight is a weird amount.

I think it was for 2 days basically and then I was supposed to be on tylenol. The surgery was not painful at all and I never took more than 2 or 3, but I was really nervous about it because I had anesthesia and the whole works (3 days of hibiclens showers, etc) - and figured I'd be in a lot of pain. It was mostly numb because the nerves were cut - and then just sore and uncomfortable. Tylenol ended up being fine. 10 years ago, I'm sure I would've gotten 30.

Some people genetically have the predilection to become addicted and others don't. It's the same with alcohol and meth and other such drugs. This is why we see alcoholism run in families.

It has nothing to do with "weakness." It may also have to do with self medicating depression or anxiety

I've found the crackdown to be a mixed bag. It's good that doctors are being forced to carefully consider the doses they prescribe, but on the other hand, not all people are addicts, and not prscribing a painkiller when one is called for has been a disaster for me.

After a bad fall and alot of broken bones, including my back and neck, my doc will not prescribe any more painkillers. Originally he gave me enough for twelve days, I made them last a month because I hate the side effects, but sometimes I need to sleep more than a half hour at a time.

It's been a few months now and pain is what defines me. I should be allowed to take an opioid occasionally. Instead I am denied. Since I am chintzy about taking them to begin with, it takes a whole lot of pain to make me want them. I'm angry that these pain relievers are being held back because some people become addicted. I'm not one of them, and I resent it.

Thanks for all the awesome support, guys. I was in a strange mood last night. I usually try to not be so self pitying. I'm gonna try to hold everything together.

But everything I said was true. It's the fent. The new DEA policies on opioids have completely backfired. The reason death from opiates is now the number one killer of Americans are those policies. It's amazing no one talks about it.

I'm rooting for R4. Sobriety is fabulous. PTSD and addiction took a huge bite out of me. Then came gratitude, peace, and joy in sobriety. Life is beautiful. Don't kill yourself.

That's a new perspective for me R27 and R4 (assuming). I appreciate it and am sure it will not be talked about because "War on Drugs" and "Just Say No" , etc.

DEA policies are not the cause.

The cause is the disease of addiction.

"Life is very hard for us all,isn't it."

Yes, people are so mean to Daddy sometimes, I just want to stamp my foot!

My second-biggest pro-wrestling crush Jimmy Jacobs has spoken openly about vikes before, saying the euphoria you get from popping a couple is “ like flying, like heaven”...but he’s also frank about the terrible comedown, thankfully.

In one anecdote on the excellent podcast ‘Wrestling with Depression’ he describes one of his past withdrawals from vikes (and other opoids) which involved him lying on his couch for literal days, just sweating & shaking & vomiting. It sounds like hell.

R20 you are a kind person. Thank you. I'm on it.

I felt the same about Oxy

When I got my wisdom teeth removed, they gave me Vicodin, and I used it once for the first day. I have a pretty high pain threshold, so I didn't need it after that. I was throwing it out when my step-mother stopped me and asked if she could have it...*shrug* sure...something like 20 years later, she dies from an addiction to prescription painkillers- she was forging prescriptions.

Also had them when I broke my nose surfing, and just took it the first day. Just takes the pain away, but no fuzzy hugs from Jesus. Interesting, as my father was an alcoholic and did his share of recreational drugs- I guess I didn't inherit the addiction gene, unlike my poor brother.

R9 here. My father and both grandfathers were alcoholics. My brother died as the result of an addiction.

I enjoy a drink now and then. But I don’t get addicted.

And I didn’t get addicted to Vicodin.

Some people are like R36 and can just “take it or leave it.” The fatalistic mythos that everyone is a potential addict is absurd.

Trouble is, there’s only one way to find out if the person with the addict gene is you.

People confuse oxycodone and oxycontin. They are not the same. An incomplete list of opioids by order of strength and addictive potential:

1. Codeine

2. Tramadol

3. Oxycodone/Percocet

4. Morphine

5. Oxycontin*

6. Methodone & Fentanyl

Codeine is mixed with Tylenol or cough syrup to help with just-a-little-worse-than-usual pain, like a bad toothache or pneumonia. It is mild and many people complain it doesn’t do much to help. Likewise, my mom (who had severe pain caused by spinal deterioration) was given Tramadol and complained that it didn’t help much—only as much as Tylenol—but she didn’t ask doctors for anything stronger because she didn’t want to become a drug addict.

My mother’s mother had the same spinal condition and she took Percocet/oxycodone for many years. This medication *really* does help bad nerve pain that weaker drugs can’t treat—but it brings serious side effects, including slight disorientation, drug tolerance (a major part of physical addiction), and constipation that can actually be dangerous. Opioids interfere with pain signals in a different way physiologically than other pain medications do, and that’s why they are necessary to treat certain kinds of severe or chronic pain.

Percocet worked very well for my grandmother’s pain for years, but her spine continued to deteriorate, causing more nerve pain, and her tolerance to Percocet/oxycodone built over years. This was over a decade ago. Her doctor told her that oxycontin (note this is oxyCONTIN) would treat her pain better than oxycodone was able to do, but she refused to take it because she heard horror stories on the news of oxycontin being highly addictive “hillbilly heroin.”

Oxycontin pills are developed as time-release drugs for people who have chronic, constant pain. My grandmother, as an example, took oxycodone/Percocet, and when she took a pill it would treat the pain and then wear off, and within six hours or so she would be in excruciating pain and watch the clock for the time when she could take the next pill. Oxycontin was developed for patients like her—the intention is that the patient takes one pill and the painkiller is released slowly over time so that there aren’t the same periods of highs and lows (extreme pain) in between pills.

The problem with Oxycontin is that people figured out that the pills are full of potent drugs (intended to be released slowly over time), and when crushed and snorted or shot up via a syringe, Oxycontin is ~ as potent as heroin. So it became a street drug that people would crush and use like heroin.

The recreational use of Oxycontin, which is expensive on the street because it is a regulated pharmaceutical, led addicted people to pursue the same high for less money, and this contributed to a rise in demand for heroin. Fentanyl, a more recently developed synthetic narcotic, is even more potent, and so a recreational drug demand developed for it.

All this is tragic for the people who’ve become addicted to this stuff by choice, but also for people whose lives are destroyed by chronic pain from diseases or injuries because narcotic pain relievers are so demonized and scrutinized now that doctors are afraid to prescribe necessarily potent pain medications to people who really need them (and who they were developed to help).

And it’s the fault of doctors. In the 90s, a (wrong) research report came out saying that addictive potential for narcotics was lower than thought, and immediately a culture developed among physicians of just handing out prescriptions for anything from Vicodin to oxycodone to oxycontin as if they were simple decongestants. They were basically unwittingly doing the work of drug dealers, who offer an easy freebie to get people hooked, and patients got hooked, and many ultimately ended up seeking out heroin, fentanyl and other killer drugs to live up to the early highs they experienced.

Now there’s a new overzealous war on opiates that just like the 80s war on drugs has thoughtlessly demonized a class of drugs that is necessary for some people.

On my mother’s side my grandfather and 3 uncles are alcoholics. My grandfather died from it, 2 of the 3 uncles lost everything and on welfare hanging in dirty bars all day. On my dad’s side my grandfather’s 3 brothers brothers were all alcoholics, it killed 2 of them. My mother is a binge drinker. I have never let a drop of alcohol pass my lips and I have to be in agonizing pain before I will take a pill. I’m terrified that I have inherited the addict gene. Even weed freaks me out.

But the above said at R39, morphine is a very strong opiate that has effectively treated acute, severe pain for centuries. I don’t understand why pharmaceutical companies have synthesized new opiates like dilaudid/hydromorphone, which hospitals brag is “seven to 10 times stronger than morphine,” or fentanyl, which is “50 to 100 times stronger than morphine.” If someone’s leg can be amputated while they are on morphine, it seems to me there’s no reason to develop or at least to routinely use a drug 50-100 times stronger than that. But as soon as my mom went into the hospital in December, they put her on fentanyl. This is a woman who took a weak opiate, Tramadol, at home to manage back pain—and she asked the hospital not to put her on fentanyl because it is unnecessarily strong. As soon as she complained of pain, they gave her fentanyl. Meanwhile, her pain management doctor (who treated her for her spinal deterioration and related nerve pain) advised her not to take Percocet as long as she could tolerate life with Tramadol—which she agreed with—because Percocet has high addictive potential. It seems like medical practice today is all or nothing—they either advise patients to live with severe, undertreated pain because of pressures from DEA regulation, or else they put any and every patient on the most potent synthetic opiate on the planet.

Fentanyl is stronger and deadlier than heroin (see photo and caption at top of linked article), and it’s today’s go-to pain reliever in hospitals. It’s a world out of balance.

In my suburban neighborhood in the 70s the docs put every plump housewife on speed. Kids would raid mom’s stash and sell it under the bleachers. Every decade has a drug that gets out of control.

R40 Fentanyl is a beast. When my mom was in hospice care she complained of back pain. She had lung cancer and we were afraid it was bone mets but as we were at the hospice stage she wouldn’t be taken for tests to confirm. She was about 80 pounds at this point. They gave her the lowest dose patch and within an hour she was zonked. The nurse said it would have been better to start her on morphine because it’s not as strong. She lived 6 more days but she was out of it I can’t imagine ever taking it unless I was also on my deathbed. After she passed I had to hand over the rest of the fentanyl patches and they were counted and placed in a sealed bag that I then initiated. The withdrawal process must be hell and overdosing would be so easy.

Are opioid addicts functional when using? From my experience I can’t imagine being able to drive a car or go to work.

OP = Judy "Pills" Garland

R4: I participated in Dryuary in January--where you don't drink for a month. I'm not an alcoholic but I certainly drink too much and it sometimes gets habitual (opening a bottle of wine as a reward at night). So I thought Dryuary was a good opportunity to press the restart button.

Went just fine. Felt great. Didn't miss drinking. Then, last night, I had a few glasses of wine..mainly because Dryuary was over so why not? Woke this morning feeling like crap and realized that I should probably just quit drinking altogether.

It seems you're really struggling and I don't want to minimize your struggle. Just hoping to encourage you by letting you know that if you can get to the point where you've lived without the substance for a couple weeks, it gets much easier to live without it forever.

r40 - I think fentanyl is safer than the other ones when used in a monitored clinical setting. It has less unpredictable effects on blood pressure, heart rate, release of adrenaline, etc... Demerol (meperidine) is almost never used now because of the above reasons. Even if it reduces complications by 10% that's still enough for entire surgical departments and ICUs to change over.

Once docs and med students start to get educated in a certain way also ("we use fentanyl here") they are resistant to change because they don't know how to manage other drug dosages and possible complications like they do with the ones they have been taught and seen work for the last 10 years. That's why everyone uses propofol for anesthesia now. It significantly reduces uncertainty and complications, and most new anesthesiologists are experienced with that in practice predominantly (book-learning takes place with the others, and the hospital rarely stocks the older ones and many of the gasses that are also more complex)

Patients will get very large doses of fentanyl under anesthesia to keep them asleep too, combined with the main anesthetic - propofol usually.

Oh also demerol breaks down into unsafe metabolites and truly is not strong enough for severe pain to begin with.

R40, you bring up an interesting point. If we have something that works (and has done for centuries), why are we creating something stronger and more dangerous?

I think it’s just the human condition. We always want New and Improved. There are so many old tried and true ways of doing things, but we feel like we have to do better.

The stronger drugs are not more dangerous when used properly. They are actually safer in some ways. However, cutting them open and injecting a 24-hour dose ... well... that's not how they were intended to be used when they were made.

Here's the relevant part of the article, as to why fentanyl is accepted more now (vs. morphine):

"Among these [benefits of fentanyl] are its short time to peak effect, short duration of action, and minimal provocation of histamine release, which causes itching and hypotension. Fentanyl has also been touted as causing less nausea compared with morphine, although this has not been rigorously validated"

There are a lot of studies on all the opiates and other non-opiate painkillers. There's a whole journal just for anesthesiologists and pain management doctors with studies on these drugs. The focus, before the addiction crisis, was which reduced pain the most with the least side effects. They were too focused on those 2 factors and completely ignored the addiction issue, partially because a lot of the patients who are given these high strength drugs are dying...so their addiction to the substance wasn't a concern. And some of the docs were shortsighted enough to think that once the hip replacement pain is gone, they'll stop wanting the med... simple as that. Addiction medicine is was not regularly taught in med school.

R47 Well yeah, we want New and Improved, but we want that because that has been sold to us as something we should want. When pharmaceutical companies create New and Improved, it’s often because a patent has run its course and it needs something New and Exclusive to outcompete cheaper generic drugs.

R48 Synthetic new super-powered drugs may not be more dangerous when used as directed, but they are more dangeous than anything available when not used as directed. Creating them is opening Pandora’s Box. Again, if something with moderate risk has served its purpose for centuries, why do we continue to create competing drugs with high risk of death by overdose and more difficult dosing because it may be easier to regulate when used as directed? If the older thing worked well, then why introduce such a high-risk new complication? Morphine is not being outmoded like antibiotics that are being out-evolved by pathogens; it has always worked and it always will work. It is very potent. What kind of insane mind decided “we need something 100 times more potent than morphine!”?

R49 To play devil’s advocate, those annoying side effects of morphine—histamine release and related itching, nauseousness and discomfort—are self-limiting effects that discourage rampant abuse. If a drug delivers a high but also discomfort, then people will be more likely to use it only when really needed to treat unbearable pain. When a drug delivers an even more potent high and more potent physical addiction with no discomfort, then that significantly increases odds of seeking out continued use of the drug even when pain is no longer present.

r50 and r51 - you wouldn't be saying these things if you had breakthrough pain (on morphine) from metastatic cancer with a few weeks to live. That's why these drugs were created. How they're being used today wasn't foreseen at that time. Purdue pharma's lies and deceptions have a major hand in all of this, again which nobody saw coming. They went around claiming oxycontin was not addictive - which is a huge part of all of this, now that oxy has been demonized by the DEA and docs can't really prescribe it, forcing addicts to turn to substitutes that are far more dangerous - and will also soon be locked down (though the stuff is coming in from Mexico and China, as it is on lock down here already)

Creating end-of-life painkilling drugs was the goal behind fentanyl...and the patch was for people with severe disabling pain. Never in a million years did they'd think people would start opening up the patches and ingesting it. Even the criminals at Purdue pharma didn't realize they'd do this with oxycontin (which isn't nearly as strong as morphine or fentanyl as a tablet) and they had to re-engineer the pill so you can't break it up anymore.

Drug companies are constantly trying to create better drugs with less side effects... it's what they do. They don't always foresee what is going to happen 20 years later. Can they be blamed for it? Yes, to a point. Purdue Pharma is certainly being blamed for what they did.

Just to be clear - the "weaker" oxycontin was released in 1995 by Purdue Pharma.

The "stronger" fentanyl was released in 1967.

So, the "why do they have to keep making things stronger" wasn't exactly in the order you might have thought... Purdue thought they were filling a gap in the market for a "safe" painkiller at home. (Well, that's what they pretended to think.)

Fentanyl is the most widely used now in 2018 (I think this is due to use in operations and inpatient settings) because of all of the research amassed for the past 50 years on analgesics and their side effects and benefits.

R52 I will buy that. Pain that exceeds what traditional, more natural pain medications can treat may be relieved by more potent pain medications, but they should be used as judiciously as chemotherapy is. And they’re not.

I’m disappointed by what I have learned about medical practice in recent years. I used to think of doctors as people of superior intelligence and education who save lives. I have learned that they are business owners and sort of human mechanics more than they are diagnosticians and informed treatment professionals. They often cannot (or don’t care to) discern marketing from a pharmaceutical company from objective, sound clinical research, and anytime a new drug appears from paying vendors and exhibitors at their CME conferences and on TV ads, they are eager to hand it out—without any thought to consequences down the road. That has to change.

About 20 years ago when I was in college I went to a doctor for bronchitis or something and I remember her giving me literally two bags of Mucinex samples. I didn’t have sinus problems. I had never heard of Mucinex. Within a few months ads were everywhere and I realized that my doctor was essentially doing marketing for a drug company. I’ve resented Mucinex ever since.

Several years later I had breathing trouble and went to a doctor. She asked if my job was stressful. I said yes. She prescribed Zoloft. I asked if she could at least check my breathing and she said it was unnecessary and she was sure my breathing trouble was from stress. Zoloft did not help and I discontinued it three months later. 15 years later I found out I had a parasitic infection called Babesia, which can cause “air hunger,” and after six weeks of an antimalarial medication my 15 years of breathing trouble including sleep apnea that used to wake me up stopped for good.

My point is that a lot of doctors are unthinking puppets who operate under the influence of drug company marketing, even if they aren’t getting kickbacks.

Sounds like fentanyl is a good retirement plan! Thank u god!

It’s sad when addicts ruin a good thing for others.

Made me puke like crazy. Tried taking 1/2 of a pill for pain -- puked like crazy. Plus, the room spun around, even with my eyes closed.

Percocet, Fiorinal, T3s all make me puke. If I am prescribed T3 or Percocet I try to use 1/2 pill only. If pain is bad, I take one whole pill with a Dramamine. But I never take Vicodin. The spinning is too much for me.

You may be lucky to have that side effect, R57. It’s a good deterrent from using an addictive pain medication when you don’t really need it.

Oxycodone makes me nauseous but hydro doesn't... not sure why. If you take it with food it's not as bad. If you really need to take it - you can take zofran.

Yeah, R54- My ENT did that with Ketek and Levaquin, both heavily pushed by the reps of those drug companies... (just like oxy and the purdue pharma did)

Anyway, I had no issue on Ketek (though it has now been majorly cut back and has multiple black box warnings) - but I had a massive side effect from Levaquin (as someone else on here also posted about too - it's really not a safe drug at all). I am sure his education about levaquin did not exceed what he heard from the rep. The rep certainly didn't bring up any side effects.

While it is true that reps do influence docs (which in ideal world is fine, if these are innovative drugs that docs should learn about) - they never say a single peep about the side effects and dangers. They're compensated based on prescriptions filled in their territories. The doctors may be to blame for not doing more homework, but so are the reps and the people who make the compensation model for the reps (ZS associates, a consulting firm, does this for a huge percentage of pharmaceutical reps). The reps for purdue were making 6 figures & all the doctor's patients seemed happy... so it was one giant circlejerk - that came crashing down. It reminded me of the housing market crash with the reps as appraisers and the docs as lenders...and distant pharma company making all the profit was Lehman or Fannie. Then - boom.

I only knew one doc who was influenced by a drug company because he was a principal investigator in a clinical trial (they paid him like $5000 per patient) and he was very well-respected so then they paid his travel and lodging / food to go around and talk about the drug + a speaking fee (I saw this all online at the site linked below). His decisions about using that drug were definitely influenced by his position... another friend of mine works for a doctor and he has drug reps visit all the time and they buy the whole staff lunch, and the doc just uses it as a perk to feed the office lunch & smiles & nods along with whatever the rep says. The drug rep gets to check off their name, but they likely won't see any compensation increase in the area from him, at least...unless it is something really novel, at which point he asks the hospital librarian to get independent research on the drug. All the reps are doing lately is taking old drugs and making them long acting.

Another friend of mine works in a doctor's office and says the doctor just lets the reps in to do their 10 minute speech & then everyone in the office gets lunch for free. So, the secretaries schedule it. They have a few "informal policies" about the reps - and one is that they won't talk to the rep about the new drug unless they bring drug samples for an older drug for patients whose co-pays went up and now they can't afford them. So, they have a massive war chest of drugs in there. Reps used to hold out on viagra samples like this way back in the early days. Unless the doc listened to pfizer speech about some new drug, they wouldn't get any viagra samples (that they took for themselves 90% of the time). I wonder if pfizer ever got in trouble for this... it was definitely happening.

R59 oxy and hydro are similar molecularly, but they are synthesized from entirely different root compounds. Your body obviously tolerates one better than the other. From drugs.com:

Oxycodone is semi-synthetic and is synthesized from thebaine (an opium alkaloid) and will only relieve pain, not cough.

Hydrocodone is also semi-synthetic but derived from codeine, and while more potent than codeine, still retains cough suppressant properties. It is more commonly found in combination with other nonopioid analgesics (for example acetaminophen), although abuse-deterrent formulations of just hydrocodone are available.

I resent that the opioid crisis means that doctors now try to avoid prescribing pain medication even when it is needed. I absolutely believe that you’ve got to have the gene or body chemistry for addiction. I have never taken an opiate for recreational purposes simply bc there is nothing there for me. I have tried most of them over the years for various reasons- surgery, broken bones, ingrown toenail removal, etc. and have never felt any bliss. In fact, I don’t feel great on them at all- it’s hard to describe. Even through the pain relief, there is this odd, icky feeling. Only on codeine did I ever feel anything close to fuzzy, and even then I could still feel the unpleasant feeling. And this was 25 years ago, before the crisis, so it wasn’t fear or anxiety about addiction. My partner is the same way, only he gets nausea to boot. Any painkillers we have last for years in our house. My mom was an R.N.so we grew up with bottles of everything in the cabinet and we never touched any of it for fun. It was always good to have it handy in an emergency.

[quote] and I remember her giving me literally two bags of Mucinex samples. I didn’t have sinus problems. I had never heard of Mucinex. Within a few months ads were everywhere and I realized that my doctor was essentially doing marketing for a drug company. I

You fucking idiot. Mucinex breaks up mucus in the lungs. It is not only for "sinus problems." Why don't you try looking up medication before you go assigning mercenary motives to people? Your dr was doing you a favor giving you free medication to liquefy the mucus in your lungs so you could easily cough it up, thereby hastening your recovery.

R62 is incorrect. Addiction is often a side effect of trauma. Childhood sexual trauma or PTSD from war. 9/11 survivors are an example. I have a neighbor who served in Vietnam. I know someone else who fell to incest.

Your gene theory as a single cause is not correct. Might help you feel superior to your neighbors who struggle. But that is it.

R60 I blame doctors more than drug company reps because a doctor’s charge is to care for a patient’s health and well being, and a drug company rep’s job is to sell drugs to anyone for profit. So the onus ultimately is on the doctor to do his or her job and prioritize patients’ well being.

Personally I have gotten to the point of asking my doctor if the drug they are prescribing is new to the market. If it is, I ask for something old. The reality is the FDA approval/clearance has little to nothing to do with safety, only efficacy. This is why new drugs are commonly heavily prescribed (assuming newest is best), and then years later stripped of FDA approval and banned following class action lawsuits due to widescale damages caused by the unsafe drugs. Levaquin and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics were prescribed a lot when they were new—because new is better!—and did a lot of damage to a lot of people before the FDA finally admitted their dangers and issued a warning that in most cases this class of antibiotics should be reserved for worst-case-scenario limited use when other abx fail because of high risk of damages from the drugs.

People discount this reality and really should not: Our system prioritizes corporate profits over individual well being. Patients should educate themselves beyond what our doctors tell us because in most cases doctors are eager to prescribe shiny new drugs whose long-term safety has not been determined, even when older drugs that are known to be safe remain available.

R65 - I know that most people blame doctors, and they are the last line of defense, but in a lot of situations, it's very difficult for doctors to get all of the information that they need on newer drugs. I'll give one example - the drug Belsomra came out and Merck reps are forced to tell docs to prescribe it at 5, 10, and 20 mg. This is because the FDA interfered with the process and refused to let Merck release the drug at 40 mg, even though Merck basically had no data at 5 mg and the drug was most effective at 40mg for sleep (but had more side effects than 20). FDA declined the application to make a 40mg pill and insisted on studies for 10 and 5 mg, which showed almost no effect. But, FDA approved these doses.

So, what is happening is that docs are giving 5 and 10 mg to patients but all that is doing is creating side effects without creating any sleep. Patients return, pissed off that they were given this drug, and they obviously refuse to take a higher dose due to the awful side effects of the low dose.

Now, unless a doctor has time to read through all the Merck trials (if you can even find them - which you can't most of the time- most are confidential, but Merck wanted to get their story out there about this) - there's no way they will know any of this. Fortunately, a reporter from the New Yorker did all the research on this (which took a long time) - and you can read about it there, but that's a perfect example of information that any ordinary physician is not going to be able to have in the course of their practice.

Has an addiction gene ever been found and is there a way to test for it? I would assume so by now with all the 23andme type companies vying for business.

I have no idea what the PC explanation for abdication is these days and I am not up to speed with what the medical community say either. There’s addiction in my family but it seems to a response to a very traumatic childhood. 4 of 9 kids are alcoholics, 2 more are problem/binge drinkers and one attempted suicide. So 7 out of 9 kids ended up screwed up. Maybe there’s genetics involved but environment had to have played a large part.

R66 And in that case, the sensible thing for a doctor would be not to prescribe Belsomra at all because it is ineffective and produces side effects. Why am I to feel sympathetic to the doctors who prescribe a medication that doesn’t work? What obligation does a doctor have to prescribe a new drug just because it is FDA cleared but doesn’t do what its maker claims to do? Other drugs do work for insomnia, and some conditions—insomnia being one of them in many cases—can be effectively treated without a risky pill.

So if a physician is aware that Belsomra does not improve insomnia at the approved dosages, and that it does cause side effects, why in the world would any physician consider prescribing it at all?

[quote]My ENT did that with Ketek and Levaquin, both heavily pushed by the reps of those drug companies... (just like oxy and the purdue pharma did). Anyway, I had no issue on Ketek (though it has now been majorly cut back and has multiple black box warnings) - but I had a massive side effect from Levaquin (as someone else on here also posted about too - it's really not a safe drug at all). I am sure his education about levaquin did not exceed what he heard from the rep. The rep certainly didn't bring up any side effects.

I'm permanently crippled from taking Cipro (Levaquin's sister). That's actually why I clicked on this thread to begin with--I'm now a lifelong opiate consumer thanks to my never-ending Cipro-induced pain that has ravaged my entire body. I'm currently taking oxycodone and it just barely takes the edge off. Doctors have no fucking clue what they're giving out when it comes to fluoroquinolone antibiotics. It's unthinkable that a few pills could land you in a wheelchair for life, and yet that's exactly what is happening to people who've been given Cipro, Levaquin & Avelox.

My dad had a urine test that showed “few bacteria” (that’s literally what the lab report said) and his urologist put him on Cipro. His Achille’s tendon started to hurt suddenly after he took one pill and he thought it was just a coincidence, but he read the side effects anyway and snapping tendons is one of them. He then remembered that both of his mother’s ankle tendons snapped when she was put on Cipro. He asked me if he should take it and I told him what I’ve read about fluoroquinolones and urged him to tell his doctor to give him an old-fasioned, tried and true antibiotic. His doctor told him he didn’t really have a bad bladder infection anyway, so just don’t worry about it—you don’t need any antibiotic.

This just happened while my mother was in the hospital in a coma. Imagine if my father’s tendons snapped and he couldn’t walk while his wife was dying in the hospital—from an antibiotic known to be unsafe that the FDA discourages prescribing except in rare last-resort cases, and in this case prescribed when an antibiotic may not have been necessary at all. This is why I insist that the buck stops at doctors. There is no point in blaming sales reps; their sole job is to sell ice to an eskimo. It’s the doctor’s responsibility to be knowledgeable and to protect the patient’s well being.

r68 - That is what is happening. Docs have stopped prescribing it. Insurance companies have also stopped covering it. There is no "obligation" to prescribe anything, but it's a good drug for sleep compared to what's out there for a few reasons...with the main one being that it is not addicting unlike virtually every other sleeping agent (and it has been out long enough to know for sure it is not addictive). The point you previously said was that doctors are the ones who you hold accountable for bad prescribing descisions, but often it's the pharmaceutical companies and FDA who bury the bad information in the first place. That's what I am saying.

Now, the reps are giving the information to docs that the FDA is forcing them to give, leaving out all of the 40 mg study info (they are not allowed to talk about that as official Merck representatives, though the info is available). Meanwhile, the researchers spent 10 years developing this very novel drug, in a very complex way - but the FDA, at the last minute, decided to fuck over Merck and only approve an ineffective dose.

You'll understand more if you read the story on it. However, it is very long. (Now just imagine a doctor reading something 10x as long as this for every drug, on top of seeing office patients, hospital patients, returning calls, finishing notes, writing back reports to referring physicians, etc..). They'd never leave the office, especially now when they're salaried and expected to see 40 patients a day.

R71

“Now, the reps are giving the information to docs that the FDA is forcing them to give, leaving out all of the 40 mg study info (they are not allowed to talk about that as official Merck representatives, though the info is available). Meanwhile, the researchers spent 10 years developing this very novel drug, in a very complex way - but the FDA, at the last minute, decided to fuck over Merck and only approve an ineffective dose.”

So again, yes, I realize doctors are busy with 1) paperwork; 2) often managing the business of their practices and then 3) seeing patients...but the onus still is on them to educate themselves beyond what SALES PEOPLE tell them. You say that the doctors are ill informed because sales reps can’t give them all the information they need...but what intelligent person would believe in *any* setting that what a sales person tells them is all the information they need to make an informed decision? That is how gullible people get conned, and knowing better is how un-naive people avoid being conned.

R65, r68 - you should really put blame on pharmaceutical companies, unscrupulous doctors, and drug distributors (legal and illegal).

Dreamland by Sam Quinones is a few years old, but gives great insight into how opioid addiction rates spiraled out of control.

[quote]You say that the doctors are ill informed because sales reps can’t give them all the information they need...but what intelligent person would believe in *any* setting that what a sales

That's not what I wrote...I wrote that you cannot expect doctors to have access to the entirety of a clinical trial of a medication & what drug companies put out (via reps or their studies or whatever) is all that is out there. They hide the rest. They've been caught over and over again at this, yet they still do it. You expect doctors to know concealed / falsified information?

As an aside, I don't think you understand how much information there is in medicine... from medical practice, diagnostics, and treatments (of which pharmaceuticals are only a part).

Also, legally, pharmaceutical reps cannot lie about their drugs - and that is why doctors don't treat them as used car salesman as you seem to do. There are severe consequences for misrpresentations. The drugs companies / drugs that have these kinds of scandals attached to them become notorious as well, if they're not banned altogether (fenphen or vioxx). Neurontin managed to survive the scandals, but they were in court for a decade and ended up paying hundreds of millions. Not a lot to them, perhaps, but see attached also for all of the info concealed from the doctors. The doctors cannot assume every drug released is shrouded in lies. We'd still be using penicillin and AZT then.

Unfortunately, the consequences are not criminal, as they should be - though. They are just fines. Pfizer paid $400 million due to the false statements the reps were making about Neurontin (covered more in this article - it's a separate lawsuit). Nobody from Purdue Pharma is going to jail, though they caused more drug addiction and death than Pablo Escobar.

The drug company just sells a few shares of stock and writes a check - they barely even notice. So, it will continue.

Anyway, I guess you mostly see the shitty lazy doctors who don't do their homework, but I've seen those types & some very different ones - so I have a different take on the "blame the doctor" situation. The doctors who were running the pill mills in Florida were prosecuted and lost their licenses...which is what the DEA is threatening average doctors with now when they have too many controlled substance prescriptions on record. They get a big letter / threat from the DEA for doing their job.

Woops - here

R74 I’m sorry, but being a cynical lifelong Washingtonian, I believe a sales person is a sales person and that person has one goal: generate profits. Regardless of legal restrictions. Lobbyists are effectively high-powered sales people. They are supposedly bound by strict ethical codes of practice, and members of Congress likewise have to act in accordance with federal ethics regulations to prevent undue influence. And yet somehow, still, the NRA, tobacco, AgTech, and yes pharmaceutical lobbies have close to unlimited coffers and despite ethics regulations elected officials take orders from them. Pharmaceutical sales people are paid very well for one reason: they are specialists at generating profits and working around obstacles that include FDA regulation and known risks of drugs. They are used car sales people—just ones who wear nice suits and are beautifully polished 20-somethings.

Well, if it makes you feel better, most doctors hate them as much as you do.

I worked briefly for a doctor who worked his ass off - and had a massive library - books & journals everywhere, etc... he'd look everything up & call around to other doctors and researchers in the hospital (was a university hospital with PhDs). So, when I work with someone like that & people are like "doctor's are idiots for believing the sales rep bs" - it's not really what's happening. Someone like him is about 1000x smarter than any sales rep (or me) - and if he had the data, he'd eviscerate anyone at a drug company for peddling their BS. But, they don't release the data until after they get sued & it's forced out of them by discovery.

But there are also many lazy doctors and doctors who are annoyed that you have your own opinions... when the internet first became ubiquitous, they would go nuts if you tried to contradict them with "something I read online"... this went on for 5 years, at least.

R78 Many doctors still resent “Dr. Google.” And it’s justified in many cases. I’m sure they see a lot of people who say, “No, no, doctor, with all due respect, you’re misinformed. I read in GOOP...”

But that shouldn’t prejudice them against all information online. I am an annoying patient who uses contraindication calculators, who reads research through PubMed, etc., and who brings questions. I don’t assert “truths” that are contrary to common wisdom, but I do ask questions and doctors who have no answers or no tolerance for questions don’t remain my doctors.

r57, I'm not sure, but I will add that both my alcoholic father and brother have genius IQs and schizophrenia runs in the family (which the women seem to get). One of my exes was an alcoholic and in my mind, bipolar (either laughing hysterically and happy, or in a week long depression), and I think his addiction of alcohol and weed was a way of self medicating.

R64, I tend to agree. Watching “Intervention”, I observed that about 90% (wild guess, but vast, vast majority) of the addicts on that show had been sexually victimized.

Which is not to say that is a statistical proof, but I find it interesting. I think that it’s part genetic predisposition, part environment and part chemical trigger. When all those things aren’t favorable, you have an incorrigible addict.

For instance, if both your parents are alcoholics from a long line of alcoholics, you have a very high probability of being an alcoholic. But if you never touch a drop of alcohol, that gene won’t get a chance to activate. It’s a little of everything. My father was pitifully addicted to alcohol. But he had served two tours in Vietnam and had a rough upbringing. RIP, Dad. And I am extremely careful about my own alcohol consumption; it runs in his family.

Not to get off topic.

Drugs and alcohol are deadly for some people. Sobriety is freedom for them.

This thread has turned into LOVELINE.

All in all this has been a very informative thread. I appreciate all the contributors.

R84 Thanks for being decent. It’s like finding a pearl in an oyster bed when someone randomly drops a respect bomb on DataLounge.

[quote]morphine is a very strong opiate that has effectively treated acute, severe pain for centuries. I don’t understand why pharmaceutical companies have synthesized new opiates like dilaudid/hydromorphone

I'm glad they did because I can take dilaudid but not morphine. But for all I know my record is "marked" because when I was given dilaudid, it made me goofy enough to say something about it to my partner -- we listen to the Mountain Goats and there's a song of theirs called "Dilaudid." The nurse's eyes shot straight up when I said something and I thought oops, now she thinks I'm drug-seeking.

R46 I get Michael Jackson’s ‘Morphine’ stuck in my head whenever Demerol is mentioned.

R86 I am strongly biased against dilaudid. My mom had a major spinal surgery years ago that got a staph infection in the wound. She was in SO much pain. We took her to the ER, and they shot her up with dilaudid. Within minutes she was still in excruciating pain but also seemed to have been hallucinating and was terrified and screaming from paranoia. She thought someone was trying to kill her. The nurse gave her MORE dilaudid. I asked what it is and she was like, oh, it’s great, it’s 50 times stronger than morphine! My mom got even crazier and still had the pain after the second shot. I pleaded with the nurse to just give her something tried and true—morphine—because it had always worked in the past and this stuff clearly was not helping my mom. The nurse’s response was, “if dilauded doesn’t work, then morphine won’t work. Dilauded is 50 times stronger than morphine!! But it should be working. After so much dilauded she shouldn’t be in pain. Let me check with a doctor.”

She came back after 10-15 minutes and my mom was still in her hell. The nurse said my mom had so much dilauded in her system that they couldn’t give her morphine (I insisted...insistently that they give her something else), but she said the doctor authorized Percocet even though it was comparatively weak and wouldn’t help. Shortly after the Percocet, my mom settled down and her pain seemed to have improved, but she was still delirious. After the dilauded began to wear off she came back to reality. She had been checked into the hospital by then. The hospital changed her Rx to morphine and it took care of her pain and didn’t make her crazy. From that point on she listed dilauded as an allergy.

I don’t know if it’s because of the strength or the synthetic formula not meshing with her biochemistry or what, but that shit really tortured my mom psychologically and somehow it did not improve her pain at all—even compared to Percocet. Dilauded was new or newish then; we’d never heard of it and at some point it became the go-to hospital drug for pain. I always ask for something that has been around for decades now instead of the newest, strongest, time-untested drugs.

Stronger drugs have been very helpful in cases of terminal illness when morphine was not

Until you've seen late stage cancer patients writhing in pain and crying out begging for death some of you might reconsider that these matters should be left to doctors. The Feds should do the same..

Wow GOOD good thread. I deal with chronic pain and have been dealing with opiates for about 15 years now. It’s such a struggle, I am tired of it.

The bottom line is that there IS a price to pay with these drugs. Even if you aren’t at a high-risk for overdose, they TOTALLY change your personality. I’m very very thankful for the pain relief, but in many ways it’s ruined me. I also have severe depression, so you can imagine what opiates have done for my depression, it’s not good.

I’m not anti-opiate though, it’s got to be a persons choice, everyone’s response to pain is different. But to those of you here who push yourselves to use non-opiate meds, you’re smart, keep doing that.

Narcotics make me sick. Vicodin was the worst of all.

The only drug I ever loved was Halcion. God that stuff was great. We had to work rotating shifts and halcion was a godsend. I could sleep for 5 hours and wake up totally rested.

Here's how easy it was back then -- I worked in a uni hospital so there were prescription pads at every desk for the residents to use. I'd go up to the desk, write a script for halcion and ask the dumbest resident to sign it for me. There was no such thing as a DEA number or an electronic Rx back then.

Ah, the good old days.....

Jeff Sessions and Chris Christie (even though he's no longer NJ Gov) have been adamantly claiming and spreading the lie that marijuana is a gateway drug to opioids when the reality is that states with legal recreational marijuana have the lowest rates of opioid addiction.

If a person has to resort to purchasing marijuana on the black market because it's illegal in their state, they are also very likely to come in contact with someone selling opioids and end up exposed to these highly addictive drugs that way. An dif they can't get the marijuana they may start using opiod/painkillers instead.

Christie and Sessions are dangerous in that they are incompetent imbeciles who should be taken out back and shot for their crusade against legal marijuana and their endless misleading information and unfounded lies. They've even exploited opioid/heroin addicts and had them take part in their public service announcements where they said the reason they turned to these hard drugs is because marijuana use led them there.

BTW & FWIW these two pos are currently working with the DEA and Big Pharma on a synthetic form of marijuana that will be dispensed via prescription only and will eventually replace all recreational marijuana, which, thanks to them, has been reclassified as a controlled substance. That's how devious these two devils are. I am sure they will get their Big Pharma kickbacks when the synthetic form becomes widely available and widely prescribed. Neither care about public safety, they care about power and control, and their bank accounts. I hope Sessions is exposed and fired and ends up behind bars along with Trump & Co.

R92, life is a gateway drug to opioids.

Just wanted to say GREAT THREAD, hope people keep contributing....

One of my cousins, who was known as a don't mess with me kind of person and not the easiest person to get along with at times, became addicted to percoset and oxycontin after having back surgery from an accident. At the time we were both in our late 40's. I had no idea she had a painkiller addiction and others who knew about it didn't realize how addicted she was really was.

She would lie to get these prescription drugs. She even went to doctors a few hours away from her home and paid cash instead of using her insurance. Apparently, since they didn't check ID, she was able to give them a made-up name/address and get a script for these painkillers under false pretenses from several different doctors. She had also paid other people to go to their primary-care doctor and pretend they were in pain and get the drugs for her from their doctors. She never asked me to do this for her probably because she figured I wouldn't do it and she didn't want me to know about her addiction.

She was up to about 12-15 pills a day when she passed away a few years ago, at age 54. I had thought all along that she changed for the better when she was actually in a serious full-blown addiction during that 7 or 8 yrs, as she was calmer and much easier to get along with. She went from being difficult or uncooperative at times to being helpful and supportive. I actually thought it was one of those extremely rare cases where an adult changes for the better. This was the only time we really got along well and where I could deal with her and even spend the entire day with her without being annoyed or upset.

Prior to her addiction she wasn't an awful person and she wasn't hated, but she wasn't easy to get along with at times, yet she was a whole different person while in addiction. I had never heard of these drugs making someone go from anxious and difficult to be around at times, to always being calm, pleasant and helpful. So the only time I knew her to be calm and "normal" was the last 7 or 8 years of her life when she was addicted to painkillers. Has anyone else ever heard of this or experienced it themselves?

Yes. I have been able to sail through many a crisis with relative equanimity due to copious amounts of Ambien. Probably people think I have a different ability to handle stress than I really do.

But the kicker was, the more I took, the more anxious I felt if I didn't keep taking it. That's addiction. Also, Ambien withdrawals begin within a few short hours after the last dose. There is a strong relationship between how much you take and how much anxiety you feel. Now I am almost off it completely and feel a natural state of calm returning. The sense of doom stemming from withdrawals is a fading memory.

why are they making it harder for me, a 66 yr old sufferer of arthritis, broken back, neck messed up, etc.....to get opiates. only they, for the last decade, have abated my pains, but they want my dr to lessent the amount. .... creeps!

unfair!

let the despicables go to heaven. people want their pain ended.

^ Because politicians control doctors and lawyers control HMO's, and politicians and lawyers are all about power and profit.

California's insurance commissioner has launched an investigation into Aetna after learning a former medical director for the insurer admitted under oath he never looked at patients' records when deciding whether to approve or deny care.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones expressed outrage after CNN showed him a transcript of the testimony and said his office is looking into how widespread the practice is within Aetna. "If the health insurer is making decisions to deny coverage without a physician actually ever reviewing medical records, that's of significant concern to me as insurance commissioner in California -- and potentially a violation of law," he said. Aetna, the nation's third-largest insurance provider with 23.1 million customers, told CNN it looked forward to "explaining our clinical review process" to the commissioner.

R96, good for you!

Makes me so dizzy and nauseated.

Has anyone here taken Meloxicam? I need to work past the pain of bad knees before I can deal with physical therapists. Thing is, I don't trust the stuff nor the doctor who prescribed it after he said to take it only every other week. WTF? Is it that toxic? Google isn't much help. Pros & cons - the usual stuff. Meanwhile I'm just icing the knees and getting by on aspirin - and red wine when the pain gets too great.

Yeah, I had meloxicam. It's just an anti-inflammatory. It isn't addictive. I didn't notice any major difference from advil or aleeve - but who knows - you might. Vioxx was another attempt at being a Rx anti-inflammatory but that was pulled off the market.

Meloxicam is supposed to be easier on your digestive system than advil. I never heard of this "Every other week" thing but I only took it once & am uninformed to say much more. It sounds odd to me.

Aspirin, if released today, would be an Rx drug - many people have said. You might be just as well-off on aspirin, motrin, or aleeve -- but maybe meloxicam will be better for you and your stomach lining.

I give my ancient arthritic Labrador Meloxicam for his joints. Humans can take it too?

If my opiates were cut off I'd have to put a bullet in my head. People generally don't understand that chronic pain is real. Its cruel and unrelenting.

And to young guys careful how you treat your bodies. I was extremely athletic and lifted serious weights when I was younger. Had many sports injuries which probably contributed to today's pain.

I’ve had it after herniated disc surgery. Was very useful - and fun - but stopped before script ran out. Totally get how it could be addictive. BUT I think we’re swing too far in opposite direction. People with serious constant pain - especially back and nerve pain - should have access. I’ve spent weeks with back pain - and often thought if it didn’t go away, I would rather be dead. They should be available for those in pain.