Boy have I had a shitty day.

[logansrogue]

Okay, so, against all your good advice, but going *with* my doctor's advice (sort of) I broke my dose of oxy in half yesterday. After twenty minutes, it wasn't really covering the pain very much. I said to Mum:

"I'm as high as I was yesterday and I still feel the pain. I should just take the other half."

Mum was like, "Sure, go on then."

OH MY GOD WHAT A MISTAKE THAT WAS. I got higher and higher and higher over the next half hour. An hour I am tripping balls. Then suddenly, about an hour and a half after dropping the halves, I:

- Went really pale
- My heart rate went up
- My blood pressure went down
- Had the shakes something fierce
- I staggered into the bathroom to have a vomit, vomited a small amount
- Needed to go to the toilet for number twos, STAT.

Oh I felt like arse. I just felt so sick, so terrible. I forced some food down myself (as I hadn't had a proper meal that day) and spent the rest of the night getting over whatever the hell *that* was. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I am terrified of taking the oxy again. I mean, the first day I took it, it was fine. I was really high, really stupidly giggly and it was quite enjoyable. The next day the oxy ripped my fucking head off.

I thought the horror was over, but when I woke up this morning - oh my GOD. ANXIETY CITY. I had nightmares, I couldn't sleep, I was riddled with anxiety and my body was trying to convince me to take more oxy, even though I know that it's not the best idea. And I don't like my body trying to trick me into something. The only time I think of that as a healthy, necessary thing is when my body does that when I'm fasting for some reason. THEN it may try to trick me into eating and drinking. But not over drugs. That really makes me uncomfortable and wary of whatever I'm taking. As I said to my boyfriend, I've never had that reaction with codeine. Ever. I can space out the codeine and I can take it when I need to and my body doesn't freak out if it doesn't get it. I get a bit blah feeling, like a slight flu, but never, ever, EVER that horrible craving.

The other thing that worries me over the oxy is that my attention span is drastically reduced when I'm on it, but that might just be the giddy high. See, I'm reticent to dismiss the oxy out of hand because if I get used to it the way I'm used to the codeine, it might be a handy way to keep a cap on the pain. And when I first started taking the codeine, I'd get stupidly high and then pass out. But then I got used to it and now I just enjoy an elevated mood for about twenty minutes.

So, yeah, don't know what to do. I mean, this horrible experience is probably down to breaking the pill up. Oh, to explain what the doctor told me, she said it was fine to break it in half and take a half. She didn't say it was then fine to take the other half. That was my own stupidity. If anyone knows oxy better than I do, feel free to let me know if I've done shit wrong or if this stuff just doesn't agree with me.

Anyway, I was meant to go over to my boyfriend's house tonight, but I told him I was too freaked out from the drug experience. He was incredibly understanding, and said that he'd take me to go see X-Men: First Class tomorrow to get my mind off of it (even though he's not a huge X-Men fan). What an unbelievably awesome guy. Just when I think I can't adore him any more. :)

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I am sorry for the pain and problems you're enduring. Sometimes it seems the cure is worse than the disease. But I wanted to note, a friend who's taken a LOT of pain meds for years (all legal - tl;dr surgery issues) told me if something isn't working fast, she's crunched the next pill - this apparently speeds the delivery of the drug, rather than depending on the time-release of the coating dissolve. She also said her doctor has scolded her for it; that could be why your doc only advised half with it cracked open, to see the effects of that versus a whole unbroken pill. Ask your doctor about that.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

Fuck. I hope this all wears off soon for you. *woms*

You had an overdose, because the pill was split. A fairly full-on overdose, given your rather extreme narcotic sensitivity. The dose that you were supposed to get on a trickle over many hours was absorbed all at once. That was ignorant, dangerous advice from your doctor. Sorry to be so blunt but that advice was just wrong wrongitty wrong, and I'm really mad at your doctor for it. My pharmacology is many years out of date now, I haven't even practised for six and a half years, but that's like one of the very few HUGE HONKING CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY RULES I remember. And if you're up to it sometime, it would be really good for the doctor to get this feedback, and with information in writing to minimise the chances of them doing this anyone else. And your pharmacist should have warned you verbally about this also, with a new prescription, whether they thought you might try splitting it or not.

http://www.drugs.com/cdi/oxycontin-sustained-release-tablets.html

It's in the big yellow warning box at the top.

(Please don't freak yourself out too much about the "could be fatal" bit - that pretty much applies to larger doses. Which your doctor may well be prescribing to other people.)

more from the Australian CMI:

http://www.mydr.com.au/medicines/cmis/oxycontin-tablets

"OXYCONTIN tablets are only designed to work properly if swallowed whole. The tablets may release all their contents at once if broken, chewed, crushed or dissolved which can be dangerous and cause serious problems, such as an overdose or even death."

And I'm guessing you never had anywhere remotely near as much codeine equivalent as you had with this oxy, which is why the codeine never affected you like this. The equivalent in codeine would be way over 100 mg (so more than 12 Panadeine tablets (without the paracetamol)). That would make even ME really really sick if I had it all at once, and I take 4-8 Panadeine Forte a day and have for years.

*more woms*

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh! That makes some sense. Believe me, with all the abuse I give my liver, I did not need last night's adventure, I really didn't. It wasn't pleasant in the slightest. Actually, that's a huge understatement - it was utterly traumatic.

So if I take the oxy as directed, it won't kill me like that? It's safe? I'm scared it'll do that WOAH DUDE NARCOTIC OVERLOAD again. >_< Maybe I should just get the 5mg slow release like I asked.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

Yes! This! This is what I was going to say, only with fewer links.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

As I said to lauredhel, I am now terrified of taking the stuff again.

[melalucci.livejournal.com]

::hugs:: I'm sorry. That sounds really scary.

[poeticalpanther.livejournal.com]

Yeah - remember when I said I'd not recommend crushing them, unless you really need that serious jolt of pain-relief? This is why.

In eight years, I've only crushed one of my slow-release 10mg three times, each time for a pain event that went to 11. And even I, who take 40-55mg of the stuff every single day, found those times to be somewhat scary, though effective at the pain relief I was seeking.

So yes, you should be fine, if you don't cut or crush them. Your doctor should have known better, that's the textbook way they're used by addicts (crushed, then snorted or ingested), because it defeats the slow-release feature.

This applies for any slow-release medication. Think of it this way: it costs a lot of money (I used to do formulae maintenance and storage for a pharmaceutical company, back in the days of dinosaurs) to add slow-release as a feature to a medication. They wouldn't do that if there weren't some need for them to be slow-release, and if there weren't some serious downside for them not to be. Big pharma isn't known for its altruism: if they pay to add those slow-release compounds, it's generally a good idea to trust that choice.

They can absolutely be safe, but there's no upside in ignoring the manufacturer's recommendations. Shame on your doctor for not knowing that, or if zie was trying to save you money (by not needing another prescription written and filled), zie should have at least presented them as options, rather than encouraging a dangerous medicating practice.

Good luck, N! Hope you have better luck with a 5mg slow-release.

If, by the way, the doctor wanted to recommend something else, the 5mg oxycodone/375mg acetaminophen (paracetamol) is an excellent medication, combining the NSAID with the opiate. They usually come scored for easy halving, giving a good 2.5mg/188mg combo, but you can also reasonably cut the halves in half, giving an even finer dosage possibility. This might be a better combo for you, as it brings the anti-inflammatory feature of the paracetamol, with the pain-blocking feature of the oxycodone. It's not slow-release, so you don't have to worry about cutting it, and it's large enough physically to be reasonably easy to divide.

Sorry, I seem to be making a habit of wall-of-texting you these days. Do feel free to tell me to shut up, I won't be offended. :)

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? Don't you dare shut up! Your wall-of-texts are way informative, and in times such as these a real Godsend. Or, Noodly-appendage-send as the case may be. *^_^*

I actually really enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to worry about tracking my pill usage with the Oxy slow-release cause it lasted 12 hours. No confusion. One simple pill. I just wish it didn't wipe me out so much.

And tonight I've been telling myself that I don't need any pain relief, even though it's nearly 7am and I've half been kept up due to pain in my pelvis. I kinda do the opposite of what addicts do. I make deals withmyself NOT to take the pill. :-P The Mersyndol (9.75mg codeine, 5mg doylamine and 450 paracetamol) doesn't seem to be doing much for me today. :( I may as well be swallowing tic-tacs.

[poeticalpanther.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do that, too, actually. It's one of the things my doctor likes about me, and why she trusts me well, is that we've had several conversations about each time I've had a dosage raise. I consider them very carefully each time, because it's hard to step back down from a certain level, and because I just believe it's better for my body to be as careful as possible. I'm already partially disabled, I don't want to add "addicted" to my burdens.

It's funny, though, I sometimes don't recognize how much pain I really do live with, until I hear about other chronic pain people deal with their pain, and realize what the 40-55mg of oxy a day says about mine.

I guess in the end, you really can get used to anything. I'd have sworn up and down when I was 30 that I'd NEVER get used to the level of pain I had. And though it's gotten a fair bit worse in that fifteen years, yet I think I cope with it better than I ever did, and better every year. This was very unexpected (and I'm not meaning to imply that anyone else is wrong or a failure if they don't have this experience, as I believe pain is pain, and it hurts, and that there is no value whatsoever to comparing between people).

I'm still a total baby about headaches, though. I just can't cope with headaches, because anything that makes it hard to think makes it hard to do what I feel is my core identity. There's a reason my business is called "cogitantes". :)

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I think the fives sound like one possible good idea, but I can't give you that sort of medical advice here. Another possibility, and one perhaps more in line with rational-prescribing analgesic guidelines, is to titrate your pain relief needs properly first on non-slow-release meds, then calculate the equivalent properly and transition you onto slow release if that's where you need to go. But you'll need to talk to a doctor who you can have confidence in to help you competently through that process.