Oxycodone's Deathly Issue (Page 2)
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I've been using Oxycodone for five years for pain management. I read about all the deaths that were associated with this drug which were being attributed to intentional over medications by patients in order to get high. I discovered by pure accident that there appears to be a major flaw in this pill's ability to consistently breakdown in the human system like it is intended to do, especially in the time release tablet. As the pill fails to breakdown and release it's medication, they begin to build up dangerous levels within the upper gastrointestinal track. They eventually do release into your system, but not when you planned for it, and sometimes many stored pills open at one time and dump into your system all at once. It could look like an intentional overdose to those who don't know about this issue. Has anyone else noticed that sometimes they feel like they never even took their pain pill? Or has anyone else noticed that every once in a while they seem to get super loaded for no known cause every once in a while? I discovered this issue when I went in for a colon test and after six hours of cleaning out my whole system, I began to notice at the very end that about fifteen oxycodone pills, fully intact, began to pass through my system from the upper gastrointestinal tract. The actual test showed that there were still five more left in my upper gastrointestinal tract. Nothing else in my whole system but those pills stuck inside me. I tried to inform the manufacture, but they did not want to hear what I had discovered. Meanwhile, they continue to blame all deaths related to Oxycodone to addicts who purposely took too many pills to get high. User's beware. I like to hear from anyone else who have noticed some of the oddities I've mentioned about this drug, especially if they have a reason to believe they too had a pill build up.

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I have several more important things to say to the two who have posted this month. This drug does cause serious additional physical issues which for me were so painful that I was was given other pain killers for those conditions. It also kills a persons motivation to even maintain their previous standards for basic daily choirs. I am amazed at what I can now do physically verses what I could do prior to detoxing. One pill that really helped me in the first couple of months of detoxing was 10 mg. tablets of Diazepam used several times each day. I was able to quit these easily in the third month. This drug just helped me through anxiety issues which overtook me a couple of times a day in the first two months. Thankfully, I do not go through that any longer. If you are already sitting around at home doing nothing, you don't need to be too worried about detoxing. If you are using another opiate based drug that is a quick release for breakthrough pain, it will get you through detoxing at home without serious physical side effects. You can do what I chose to do and get off the other drugs later. Once you do the Oxycontin, you will have the courage and determination to tackle the rest of the medications that you innocently allowed yourself to get hooked on. Once you get off the Oxycontin, you will realize that you did get addicted even though you followed all the rules and never took more than you were prescribed, and were told by your Doctor you weren't an addict. It's a real eye-opener. I'm still working on decreasing all my medications and hoping I can get all the way back to taking only the mildest forms when needed. Oh yes, I also have found that Advil is more effective for my pain levels today than the Oxycontin and Narco were together. Don't forget in my first posting following my detoxing off Oxycontin, my pain level dropped 50% immediately. It's now down 75%. Amazing.

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I've noticed a few new discussions about Oxycontin since I last posted about my withdrawal experiences after going cold turkey in mid January 09. I've now been off this drug for five and a half months. When I began my self detox., I was using 150-mg. daily. I had begun using this drug in 2001 in small daily dosages. I can't say that it has been easy. Physically I have seen that this drug increased and caused serious physical pain issues that immediately went away when I stopped using it. The mental addiction is much much more powerful than the physical one. The longer you use this mind numbing pill, the harder it will be to return to life without it. Don't think you can't get off this drug because you can. It sounds to me like you two who posted this month are where I was at when I decided to just do it. I don't think I could have detoxed without my continued use of breakthrough narcotics that I had been using with the Oxycontin. Since I withdrew from this drug, I've reduced the use of four other prescribed drugs by three forth of their original dosages. I am now trying to reduce my daily intake of Narco, the last of my narcotic prescriptions. I'm having a heck of a time with this drug. I do know now that the mental dependency is a much bigger issue than the physical dependency. I don't recommend going cold turkey unless you also have other opiates that you can use when you cut off the Oxy. Once you successfully get off of the Oxy., you will see how much it really has messed up your body and mind and start trying to reduce the others as well. I wish you all well and hope that you will realize that there is no time that is better than right now when your mind is desiring to get off it. You can do this. Just realize that what took years getting into, will take much more than a week or two to get out of. Good Luck.

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P.s. I went back and read the older threads with much interest. It seems that we are all experiencing similar problems with oxycontin. I know what you mean about having all the meds catch up after feeling like you've missed doses for a a day or three, and then feeling as though you are floating along on an oxy cloud in complete dillusional bliss. I can;t wait to find an alternative, I'm willing and terrified at the same time to go through the horrible withdrawels (which I have probably experienced a hundred times or more for some unknown reason, well actually, time release not working would explain that), I know I'm rambling a bit so my apologies. I'll stop now...will check back later for any other responses.

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I've been on Oxy for about 4 years now and take 120mg per day plus two or three 10 mg quick release oxy ir's fr breakthrough pain relief. I have never 'abused' the drug, meaning never crushing or snorting. I have also noticed that I have had boughts of vomitting and looking at two or three days worth of oxyconting in the toilet or bucket or whatever. I want desperately to get off of this but don;t know what to take as an alternative for the pain. I have extremely severe nerve damage from my diabetes and I often go throgh withdrawels as I'm approaching or surpassing that 12 hour window. I go through the whole gammet of withdrawel symptoms for several hours while waiting for the next dose to kick in. I have not been able to work for just over a year now because of all of this. I am exhausted almost all the time except for not being able to sleep until 1am becuase if insomnia. I wish that my doctor had never put me on this med. She doesnt seem too concerned about my disdain for the drug but I need to get off of this. Does anyone know of an alternative pain med, preferably a non narcotic one. I was someone who never even used to take a tylenol unless I had a migraine. I am now on so much oxy as well as other meds for pain and it has literally stollen my life from me. I am on the couch most of the time, I force myself to get up and do the dishes and the basic housework but it's truly a major struggle. I was always one to take pride in myself, my work, my house, etc. I still do but now I feel like I can barely function. Please if anyone has any light to offer, please do.

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I have been w/pain meds for two years now,and I noticed that every morning when I wake up, the pain in joints knees are the most painfull. I have gout severe arthtritis and discs problems and Lately I noticed that this oxycontin may be the ones causing the pain.you are so medicated the whole day,that even natural and little pain are intensified when you are off it. I would like to learn how to get off this drug especially after hearing that this pill may have caused Michael Jacksons problem.

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I began this thread on Oxycontin over a year ago expressing my concerns over the pill's release mechanism. At that time I had been on the pill for five years. Today I have been off Oxycontin for two months. I decided to do this at home and on my own accord. I still take Norco for pain. The daily dosage I was on was so strong that I felt like a street junkie. I felt like I had lost a major part of my personality and had no motivation. I was also growing concerned over a growing issue with my memory and I'm way too young for that to happen. The following is what I've gone through and the changes I've seen in me since I quit. First is that I slept for almost a month without any desire to do anything. The second is that I immediately noticed my memory was returning. The third is that I've had diarrhea ever since I got off the drug. The forth is that my pain level has decreased by 50%! Yes, I said 50%. I use to have sever body spasms which were getting worse and worse each year. I was told it was caused by my degenerative disk disease. Not true! It was caused by the Oxycontin. The spasms have returned to the level they were at six years ago. Getting off this medication has proven to me that this pain medication is something everyone should think twice about before accepting a script for it. I don't care what your Doctor tells you, or what you tell yourself, you will end up becoming a controlled addict and it will mess up your life, personality, memory and body. It is a bitch to get off of as well. I will end with the last line of my first posting; Buyer Beware! My advice now is to get off it while you still can.

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also mike ask dr to srcrp avinza its new time released med, they tell me it s the formulation for ms-conteyn, they started me out on 30 mg s it work ok for 12 to 16 hrs, drs usually ok as this formulay suppose not to be able to be crushed, snorted, nor injected, an i worked with 2 gentlemen form uk they told me the cost of a pack of cigarettes was $5 a pack, i can only imagine the cost of medication

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dear mike, an all concerned readers please be advised that kv pharmiceticuals have been recalled 60 to 70 varies of pain killers , some are oversize an deliver twice the regimen, also fda has contacted all major pharmiceticuals an informed them that all ingredients are not approved, several companys selling placebos, so don t be surprised if your doc tells you , you failed drug screen, spouse has failed 3 urine tests so far looking for fda lab approved lab to do qualitative analysis on tablet, she s been suffering with knee pain an could not beleive pain meds was nt doing nothing, she was taking watson 10/650 hyrocodone, cousin reported today that the va failed to send his hydrocodone because of shortage problem , an they get their meds at cheapest place, news article also about chinese fake pills being sold in houston area, but that was a rackeet caught by police were owner was buying placebos as cheap as 3 cents a piece an selling 100 times or higher please be careful, please notify dr of your concerns of fake pills on market, hopefully no one has to go thru days of dts an pain

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I have seen full tabs of the OC from my father as well as at my job i work n a lab u still get the active ingredient in ur system dont be fooled by seeing it in the bowl now vomiting ur body wont have enough time for the drug to fully take effect.

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Kell,
Taking 180-mg. of Oxycontin at one time is far, far beyond the danger zone for this medication. You must realize that you are playing Russian roulette every time you take this high dosage of this strong drug. I don't know what you mean by perks, but 100 of any pain medication in a two day period is again beyond dangerous. In all honesty it sounds as if you are intentionally putting your life at risk every day. I don't believe any Doctor would prescribe such large doses of Oxcontin in or out of a hospital situation, so you must be obtaining large quantities from more than one source.
As some would say, we are not medically trained so we can only offer personal opinions, but your routine appears to have a suicidal mission behind it. If not, you need to get some serious help A.S.A.P. because you are on the road to dying from an overdose every time you take such high doses of pain meds. The white flecks are the least of your worries. I hope you take my words to heart and seek help for your problem before something terrible happens to you. Good luck.

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Its all very wierd. I used to take 1 30mg oxy and feel great but now I'm taking 6 at once to get that same feeling. I have taken 100 perks 7.5mg's in 2 days. When I finally ho to the bathroom ther are white specks in the turds. Can anyone relate. l

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My father was a doctor, and the way the NHS was going was a factor in his taking early retirement. If such a situation prevailed here that a doc could actually be afraid of being 'struck off' for his prescribing, he would have seen it as an affront to his knowledge and abilities and an interference with his right to prescribe the correct medicine for the correct condition. Looks like we may be headed in that direction as well, now I see how you put it.
Utterly disgraceful state. A human being has a basic right to proper medical care.

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Hi Michael,
Hope you got my email today. If its any consulation, the US Doctors are pretty skimpy when it comes to handing out RXs for pain that actually work. They will mess with your Seritonin levels and prescribe you medications intended for Epileptic seizures before they will give you a pain pill. Sorry your having such a rough time of it. My Doctor recently started working within a large connected group of Doctors run by a big corporation and she has been lowering my pain med's every time I've seen her in this new group. I'm sick of the War on Drugs because the only ones they are actually affecting are patients who need the meds and are getting them legally. The Doctors over here are actually afraid of having their licenses pulled from them for prescribing pain meds that actually work.

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Hi Ginny,
Yes, stupid seems about right. I tried again today and got the same answer. No increase in dosage, no breakthrough, no increase in alprazolam, no nothing, we want you off these things...
and they wonder why some of us have to resort to internet medicines!
As you can see below, my OxyContin behaved overnight just as it should, so no undissolved issue with my name-brand tablets; I am still getting 8 hours from them, which is more than you appear to be. I am concerned about the huge gap in analgesia between dihydrocodeine and morphine, which is filled in the USA by hydrocodone, meperidine etc. But then again, I can not get a US-based pharmacy to ship any of these things to me in the UK. I can't even access Dicodid, the 10mg pure hydrocodone which is sold in Germany. (They do not put paracetamol in with hydrocodone in Europe, unlike the US). More and deeper discussion is required on the whole subject of analgesia, especially since you lot over there have things that could help me which simply can not be had here. Mallinckrodt make an 8mg instant release hydromorphone which would also help - the strongest available here is 2.6mg! Peanuts to an elephant!
I need help in the form of decent 'in-between' analgesics and stronger alprazolam. The strongest tablet here is XANAX brand 500mcg! They deleted 1 and 2mg tablets a couple of years ago and are heading towards deleting alprazolam altogether. I need help. I can not get help. What on earth can anyone suggest? 40-50mg hydrocodone is pefect for breakthrough. Not available and even if it was, I doubt my doc would even write me up for it.
Can someone research how I can access anything of the nature I have described? I'm sick of those hours of pain and taking half an hour just to get out of bed in the morning.
Michael

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Hello Again,
Your Doctor won't prescribe for breakthrough pain? What category of pain treatment can we put this under; stupid? I'm given Norco 7.5/325 mg tablets ( 8 per day) for breakthrough pain. From the start I found the Oxycontin only last in me five hours max. That is pretty much the same for all my drugs. My Doctor was not surprised when I told her about the shorter life-span of the drug than what is published. I think the manufactures are hiding many accidental deaths related to the Oxycontin which may be caused by a build up of un-desolved tablets releasing all at once in the system as intentional over medicating to get high. It sure would hide a big issue if this is true. I do not put anything beyond their scope of rational when it involves billions of dollars each year for them. I have read that many drug manufactures hide, or bury, negative drug outcomes from their clinical studies. Here is a good case in point. The new bone building drug called Forteo, comes with a black box warning. They earned this FDA warning because the first study they conducted on rats with this drug ended up with every rat in the study getting bone cancer! They conducted two more studies on rats with different, lower levels of the Forteo and yet the rat's still got bone cancer in the second study. The second study delayed the release of the drug because they were trying to prove that the first study was invalid in order to get rid of the dreaded Black Box warning. When they couldn't get rid of the warning, they wrote in the patient information leaflet that because the doses were much higher than what humans get proportioned to their bodies, they can't really determine if these studies show anything meaningful. Right! While they had to sit on their behinds to see the outcome of the second study, they spent all their time and efforts redesigning the actual box itself probably to reduce the visual impact of the Black Box warning itself. This information is factual and it is only the beginning of some highly questionable outcomes on their clinical studies which are written up in a manner to hide the real big issues of this drug!

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I was under the impression that the reason for the high cost of OxyContin (compare 20mg OC price with 20mg OxyNorm, the i/r form) was the state-of-the-art sustained-release system, which is so complicated that its basis, the different thicknesses of the coverings of the grains of oxycodone with the waxy 'balls' that determine how long they take to dissolve in gastric fluids, cost a fortune to develop. Now here we do not have any generic forms of oxycodone, only name-brand due to UK patent law, and so far as I am aware the system has never changed. The patent holder, NAPP (subsidiary in US is Fred.PURDUE), has always maintained that its m/r system is the most accurate ever devised.
I did the experiment that Ginny asked me to do, leaving four or five 40mg tablets in a glass of water overnight and found that the shells had all burst open and that about 60-75% of each tablet had dissolved. Just as should be. I had added two or three drops of acetic acid to the water to imitate the Hydrochloric in gastric juices, so I think for an experiment on the hoof, it was quite accurate. There was therefore no problem seen regarding differing rates of dispense through the body, and that OxyContin, at least the original brand, works as it should with no undissolved bits or tablets apparent.
I have never had a problem in that regard; only that perhaps I am under-prescribed and my doctor will not prescribe anything for breakthrough, which I think she refuses to believe even exists! In my experience a single 40mg OxyContin lasts for 8 or 9 hours at most. Ayone else find they don't last 12 hours?

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I too have noticed an issue with the pill's ability to release medication when it is supposed to be released. I never had any issues with this medicine until the manufacturer changed the formula to combat folks chewing the pill to get a better high. For the most part, many of these folks were drug addict abusers and as always they screw things up for the legitimate patients. The change was to void out the abuse by chewing or crushing the tablets and it is dangerous to many patients who get their medications via a doctor's prescription. This change was rushed into production and I believe they need to rush it out of production in order to save people from the adverse affects caused by this modification. The mod may work for some, but it doesn't work for me and many others like yourself. Some times the drug works, but most of the time it seems to be like taking a placebo and I get no help what so ever. Patients need to take these writing to their doctors to get the FDA to force the makers to pull the mod until more tests can be done. Like you said, it seems there is a build up of the pill in the patients GI track which can eventually be deadly for a lot of us. The government needs to stop punishing the patients for misuse by addicts period. The FDA and DEA needs to stop thinking of all the users of this medication as addicts and abusers and realize they are doing more harm than good for the people who really need this medication which was given to them by Pain Management Doctors and not drug pushers. I am tired of paying for the actions of a few abusers, addicts and this mod that is making valid prescribed users look bad. I almost felt normal before this mod went into effect and now, I feel as bad as I did before going on the oxycontin ER, with the exception of several times a month it appears to work as prescribed. I have gone from a completely viable member of the community to a person who can hardly do anything and have been advised by several doctors that I should consider going on permanent disability. Damn it, I wouldn't have to if the medication worked like it used to before this idiotic modification.

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Ahhhh... you got me good on your last post. I'm not sure what the time difference is between California and Eninburg, but I read your post with complete fascination and a highly sedated mind. You know what I mean; Nurse Ratchet came by with my night round of med's. One Flew Over The Cookoos Nest So off I went looking up 75% of the pill's you named to see what they were, and then I found myself feeling much like Alice In Wonderland' as one page led me into another, and another and... You are obviously highly educated about medications and their many side effects. I have much to learn.
I think it's fun to be talking to someone in Scotland. When my Oxycontin pills all de-solve at the same time, I know I'll be reading your post with a Scottish accent and hearing bagpipes in the background.
Anyway, regarding a new thread. Let's play around on the various threads and see if we can discover what type of search entry words would help draw in the type of people we want to chat with about pain and RX issues. Meanwhile, since you and I are the only ones left on this thread we can just assume this is our own little chat room until we figure out how we want to expand our forum. Hope you have a good night.

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APOLOGIES for the unusually high number of typos in that last post.

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Where to start? The River Forth is the river upon which stands Edinburgh, capital city of Scotland.
I too wax and wane and can ramble on a bit with my meds, being that they are things like oxycodone, a powerful opiate, and alprazolam, one of the most powerful benzodiazepines. And they are often supplemented by carisoprodol, which metabolises into meprobamate, a sedative rarely seen since the advent of benzos and which, by the way, was withdrawn in the UK last week. It looks like more and more countries are banning this skeleto-muscular relaxant, which I find helps me a lot, my arthritis being of the spondylo type.
Now, as to what qualifies for inclusion in this new thread we are discussing setting up; probably all side-effect issues arising from the use of analgesics, especially narcotic analgesics; drug interactions (I have heard of people being prescribed some incredible mixtures); almost anything that pertains to the use of thes drugs to help different types of pain. Just as you would not expect 2 x 500mg paracetamol for a broken leg, you would not expect to be prescribed morphine for a headache. Living as I do in the UK, it is noticeable that we are lacking a whole strength range of analesics which are available in the US. I have trouble getting anything at all for breakthrough pain - normally in the USA you would be prescribed 30 or 40mg of hydrocodone, but that is a drug unavailable outside the USA, except for the pure hydrocodone 'DICODID' from Germany. I have tried hydrocodone/apap as a breakthrough agent and found that, despite the ridiculously high price for such a moderate-strength analgesic, 4 x 10/325mg pills are a good enough dosage for that purpose. I just don't like the idea of ruining a perfectly good painkiller by adulterating it with one of the most dangerous analgesics kown, and which, despite the amount of deaths from liver failure every year, is even available for sale on supermarket shelves. It (paracetamol) should really be a controlled drug of at least class 'B' Schedule II. f alcohol and tobacco were discovered tomorrow they would be classed at least as highly as that, and in the case of tobacco in the USA, you have a definition of a Schedule I drug which has no known medical use which would certainly apply to cigarettes.
There you are, rambling, what did I tell you? Any other ideas for what this new thread could cover?

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