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oxy / hydro withdrawal after two months
by dad's story, Jul 27, 2001 12:00AM
Hello Everyone:
My father is nearing 78 and had knee replacement suregery three months ago. Prior to the surgery, he was taking hydrocodone for about a year...four or five a week at start and as many as four or five a day right before his surgery to relieve knee pain. Post operative, they placed him on 20mg oxycontin twice daily (w/ Darvon for breakthrough pain).
Sixteen days post operative he began to feel sick...
nausea, trembling, depression, palpitations of heart, sleeplessness. He was miserable but still took his meds as directed. On learning of his sickness, his General told him to discontinue oxy (cold) and use the Darvon for pain. He remained sick and, because his knee was still in pain, his general kept switching pain meds to try and find one that would ease knee pain but wouldn't make him sick. Finally, seven weeks after surgery, my dad decided to stop taking everything and see if his sickness would get better.
Six weeks after that, my dad is constantly ill...nausea, trembling, heart racing, and sleeplessness. He hasn't had a pain med in six weeks! Everyone he sees tells him (obviously) that it couldn't be withdrawal cause everything's been out of his system so long. But why is he sick with symptoms that so closely resemble withdrawal?
At this point, we're thinking all the drugs combined with his age, etc, have blown some sort of fuse in his neurological system. Is this possible?
Has anyone heard of a situation like this before? We're looking for some clues to get him out of his misery...he's at his wit's end.
Sorry for the long post! Thanks!
13th June off everything because he was
get off all the drugs.
Six weeks of the same symptons
My father is nearing 78 and had knee replacement suregery three months ago. Prior to the surgery, he was taking hydrocodone for about a year...four or five a week at start and as many as four or five a day right before his surgery to relieve knee pain. Post operative, they placed him on 20mg oxycontin twice daily (w/ Darvon for breakthrough pain).
Sixteen days post operative he began to feel sick...
nausea, trembling, depression, palpitations of heart, sleeplessness. He was miserable but still took his meds as directed. On learning of his sickness, his General told him to discontinue oxy (cold) and use the Darvon for pain. He remained sick and, because his knee was still in pain, his general kept switching pain meds to try and find one that would ease knee pain but wouldn't make him sick. Finally, seven weeks after surgery, my dad decided to stop taking everything and see if his sickness would get better.
Six weeks after that, my dad is constantly ill...nausea, trembling, heart racing, and sleeplessness. He hasn't had a pain med in six weeks! Everyone he sees tells him (obviously) that it couldn't be withdrawal cause everything's been out of his system so long. But why is he sick with symptoms that so closely resemble withdrawal?
At this point, we're thinking all the drugs combined with his age, etc, have blown some sort of fuse in his neurological system. Is this possible?
Has anyone heard of a situation like this before? We're looking for some clues to get him out of his misery...he's at his wit's end.
Sorry for the long post! Thanks!
13th June off everything because he was
get off all the drugs.
Six weeks of the same symptons
I am an addict. I hold no one responsible for it but myself. I don't blame my parents for giving me the genes for addiction (even though they are not addicts but there is a history of addiction further down my family). I don't blame my work for stressing me out and then me wanting to take the percocets. If we stop pointing fingers we can accept the disease and treat it. I talked to doctors that are afraid to prescribe narcotics because they are aftaid of getting in trouble by the DEA. Patients have been kown to sue doctors because they got addicted to pain medicine. This is where it gets tricky, if a doctor does not prescribe adequate enough pain medicine to someone who legitametly needs the pills they risk being sued for not caring for the patient. There has been numerous studies that report that patients who are in extreme pain and require narcotics don't end up getting hooked when they are feeling better.
Well I hope I put a different view on the topic.
Tyler
I am both a chronic pain patient, and an addict. I am working my butt off trying to find how to be in recovery, ie, how to take the meds that I need to treat my pain without abusing the meds to get high. It is very, very hard! But, regardless, I am grateful that the meds for pain exist, and I don't blame anyone but myself for how I handled the meds.
The last thing that I'd want to see is a med as helpful as oxycontin get taken off the market because people like me with addcitions abused it. Instead, I'd rather see the money that would be spent on the lawsuit spent on increasing funding for the treatment and prevention of addiction.
WW