Hydrocodone - Not To Overdo It!
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I was put on Hydrocodone for 3 years due to a stroke I had. My pain is coming from the brain. The PM'S started me off with 5-325. No results on the pain. Then they increased the dose 7.5-325. Some relief but not much in order to have a quality of life. Then they increased it to 10-325 90 per month. In the wee hours of the morning I would wake up with pain, so I was cutting one in half, leaving me short of pills for the month. So they increased it to 120. I got to where I was taking too many and the PM discharged me for a breach of contract.

Then I found another PM. Same thing happened, but this time instead of discharging me they put me on week to week basis - 21 pills a week. I had to visit the doctor's office once a week and then take the script to my pharmacy. Once I proved I could be trusted they now have had me on Hydrocodone/Acetaminophen 10-325 (90 a month) for the past 3 months. I still have my moments but it's not like it was before. I asked for an increase to 20 a month but they say I need to prove to them. By the way, the pain is coming from the right arm and hand, no blood circulation. Do not want to lose this PM.

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I hate that you're going through this. Where I live I get a hundred and twenty narcotics every 28 days. I haven't had any problems whatsoever at least yet. If you can't get your narcotics go on Suboxone and try it I've heard a lot of good things about suboxone. Check with your doctor. Good luck.

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Re: w john (# 38)

My dismissal was due to morphine showing up which like i said i never touched it unless i had surgery under a doctors order.i ask for a dimissal of results on my record and was denied .

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Re: w john (# 39)

I have not had oxycontin in my body in 5 years now. So what I am [prescribed is new to my body and does work for me. I will say that oxycontin is a great pain reliever, but very addictive. When I was getting off oxycontin I was in a coma for 20 days. I was lucky because that is when I went through withdrawals which were horrific I was told.

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Re: Peggy (# 41)

Sorry to hear what happened to you. You are correct about the companies not caring about people and are only trying to make as much money as possible. Today's world. My contract is that I can only get pain meds from my one pain doctor which is fine with me. He understands pain and wants to help. I got lucky finding this guy.

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Re: ED (# 40)

Pharmaceuticals Control what the doctors dispense. I was jumped from90 to 120. I then read that pharmaceuticals companys was controlling this. Now im without meds for severe pain because i was told i broke the contract.i was only on contract a year and now im out because the PM doctors prescribed these that i didnt ask for.i only wanted mild relief.now i cant sleep good and im tensed up.hope all the doctors got rich because this is a bunch of bull.

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Re: w john (# 38)

Good for you. It is horrible the way insurance doctors determine if someone should have a certain prescription. They have no idea your situation. Good luck.

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Re: ED (# 35)

Ed, I just went back and reviewed an earlier post of mine to you and it seems that the spell check "corrected" a word I posted and it made the meaning of the word way different than what I meant to write. What I MEANT to post was that if you had been on oxycontin or some such formulation of this pain medication that any formulation of hydrocodone would probably be of no value to you because this pain medication, while still an opioid, is way weaker than any normal formulation of oxycontin. I hope this clears up what I MEANT to post NOT what the spell check corrected my intended word to say.

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Re: ED (# 35)

I had a 45 minute hearing the other day and I am optimistic that I will prevail. I hope I do because this will set a precedent for all insurance companies that without a prevailing good reason that the insurance company cannot deny a name brand medication. The insurance company and a Doctor they hired tried to testify against me but the Doctor was asked if he had my medical records and had he ever examined me to render a determination on my request. He said NO he had not and was told that without both being so that his testimony was moot. The insurance rep also got her ass handed to her because she was relying on what the Doctor said to deny my medication request and his testimony was riled irrelevant for the above stated reasons. I remain hopefully optimistic not so much for me but others similarly situated that has been denied their pain medicine requests for absolutely no good reason. I may still lose given the state of our so called "opioid crisis" but I do feel that I was given at least a fair hearing and I will respect the rule of law as that was how I was raised.

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Ed Davies (# 20) --

That's horrible, Ed! I thought the nation's Fire Depts. really took care of their injured on the job, and the families of fallen firefighters. But that is just awful treatment! I mean, yes, chronic pain patients in the entire country are affected by the DEA's newest recommendations. I finally at the end of last year decided to wean myself off of Norco and Ativan (although I need both to have any sort of life). I was railroaded into taking a different brand of Norco by my insurance, and it may as well have been a placebo. So I took a month to get off them. Then I got off the Ativan as well. Tired of being jerked around and counting pills and having to pick up in person. I don't have a life, but I'm opioid and benzo free.

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Re: DR TIM (# 23)

Dr. Tim, I have been sick and was not ale to answer you until now. I have one thing to say that your advice is true. Now why patients like me and others who need painkillers suffer do to others that don't need them. When I was working at a disability clinic 90% of the patients were not disable. These patients were going to crooked lawyers and doctors to cheat the system. These lawyers and doctors know how to get these patients on disability. The insurance companies, workers compensation and social security all get screwed. But the patients who think they are cheating the systems. They are cheating themselves by the drugs the doctors and lawyers give you to play this game. There is no reason unless really needed. I wish I never had polio but I think the painkillers to survive I think are worse then polio. But at the age of 80 years I don,t believe the gov, dea and doctors should make me suffer for what other crooks do. Think what they doing to real patients in need of pain medicine. I hope they look into this. I don't know how much longer I can take this pain and feel for others who are going thru the same. Wake up gov, dea and doctors this why painkillers got out of hand starting in the 1980 until today. Pray for change.

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Re: w john (# 34)

Good luck with your lawsuits. If you feel what you are taking helps with the pain go for it. I will take whatever it takes to help my pain. Not being negative to you, please understand that.

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Re: ED (# 33)

I believe that if you have been prescribed oxycontin and then oxycodone AND a Fentanyl patch too that there is no possibility that any formulation of hydrocodone would be worthless to you. You have been receiving a much stronger pain medication for some time so something way below the pain medication you have been receiving would be worthless to you. In my case, I do NOT want to go to a stronger medication AS LONG AS the meds prescribed to me will work and I want to find out if they are properly manufactured by following the recommendation of the TWO Pharmacists who have told me that the generic formulations are now crap. They were fine for over a decade with no complaints from me but since the manufacturers have changed the formulation to make the pills ineffective I want to try an allegedly better product. NOT a stronger one.

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Re: w john (# 31)

John have not had the problem of less help with my medication that I have been taken for about a year now. I will have a tolerance by the end of this year I know because I have a very high tolerance for pain medication. I am on 6 10-32 oxycodone a day and 100 mg fentynal patch every 2 days. I am still in pain. Years ago I was on oxycontin, but medicare will not approve it. Problem was the same with that. I got such a tolerance. I was taken so much oxycontin that I do not know why I am alive, but it did stop the pain. No hydrocodone for me since it would most likely not even work. Good luck.

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Sorry. Some of you responded to me with questions and I just saw the major typo in my #16 post. First I recommended getting Kratom not "Meat on" whatever that is. This is a natural opioid agonist that will get any of you through withdraw symptoms at least temporarily. No I was not an addict but since I was on narcotics for nearly 13 years the dependence issue is so strong it didn't matter that I wasn't an addict. The problem is with the doctors. Instead of letting you get a tolerance to any one medicine they should constantly break up your routine if you are a chronic pain person. Vicodin for 3 or 6 months then Oxy for a few months then Dilaudid etc.none of them have a brain in their heads but now due to the narcotics hysteria all they want to do is either give you something else like Lyric a which is far more dangerous or they want to cut down your script. Demand more from these quacks!

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Re: ED (# 27)

Tolerance is always a possibility. However, the generic hydrocodone has been reformulated, and, for example, if one is prescribed a 7.5/325 mg hydrocodone/acetaminophen the manufacturer is allowed by law to have a 20% deviation in the active ingredient. This does not even address the issue of remanufacturing the active ingredient and changing the inactive ingredients. It has been widely reported that the generic manufacturers are trying to reformulate the active ingredient so that a person prescribed this medicine will supposedly get pain relief but not any of the associated euphoria that comes with this medication. The issue is that the reformulation, while trying to leave in the "pain relief" and remove any of the "euphoria" aspects of the pill has failed miserably. When you reformulate the pills to remove the euphoric properties of the pill and leave the pain relief what you end up with is a pill tantamount to a Tylenol or Advil. The pain properties are lost in this reformulation. This does not even address the inert ingredients that have been cheapened to the lowest quality these inert ingredients could be reduced to. It is not always "tolerance" that causes a patient to want to increase their dosage.

I noticed a huge difference beginning with my refill in January 2018. I spoke with the Pharmacists in TWO major Pharmacies and both of them told me (off the record because they do not want their jobs put in jeopardy) that they have had many complaints both at the local and national level of their companies about how the efficacy is awful and that if a patient wants a medicine that works they should request "NO GENERICS" on the prescription. I have been taking hydrocodone/acetaminophen 7.5 for over 12 years and never complained about the pills given until I refilled in January 2018 and I noticed a huge difference in the efficacy of the pills. I went through many different "step" therapies before it was decided that the prescribed pills were the best for me. My insurance must preapprove the name brand and so far they have refused. I am taking them to Court next month to argue their policy. I have the law on my side but in this political climate of every group trying to assault chronic pain patients I am not optimistic. These insurance morons have sent me a suggestion that my Doctor prescribe a much stronger generic, like oxycodone. I don't want a stronger pill. I just want one that works. BOTH Pharmacists, from TWO different large Pharmacies, recommended that I try the "name brand" of the medication I am taking as they have had no complaints on this. When Pharmacists from two different Pharmacies say the same thing it appears that they may be on to something.

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Re: Vince (# 15)

Omg have you gone threw withdrawal. Because i have an it almost killed me some of us actually have mefical readons for taking those meds i have had the surgeries the dhots the physical. Thearpy an now all thats left is the pain meds the. Last time i was with out meds. I was out for 8 months sn was put in hospital for 3 werks to get the pain under control guess what i was givin demerol then sent home with a nurse who came every day to monitor. The pain level i alsohad a stroke .pain like thid is nothing to play with . now i was told by the doctors that i must take the psin medd. So please don't. Suggest. Going. With out medication. For those of us who actually. Have legit issues

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Re: NotADrugAddict (# 12)

I AM GOING TO GET ME SOME CBD OIL AND TRY IT.

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You are one of the lucky ones. I was on hydrocodone for 40 yrs. 5's for 35 yrs under my doctor's order due to chronic syndrome from a car wreck then fibromyalgia for the past yrs. All this under my doctor's orders. Now they said morphine showed up. I have never used morphine. The doctor went from 30 to 90 to 120. I was satisfied with 30, now he said i broke the contract and I only had a contract for 2 yrs.

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DOUG (# 19) --

You are probably getting a tolerance. Sounds like you need a higher dose of what you are taking. Has nothing to do with companies putting less pain med in the medicine.

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Re: Billybob (# 4)

My doctor kicked me out because morphine was in my test.i dont nor never have used anything that wasnt prescibed.i have L4 andL5 with fibromyalgia and arthritis.gabapenten doesnt help.

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