Hep C and Oxycotin

I have worked with patients for over 8 years, as a counselor for drug/alcohol and just heard of my first client to say he was being treated for his Hep C with Oxycotin. What are the benefits or possible reasons for this? Wanting to understand in OKC

[Bobby1952]

  Are you sure he is not jerking you around. Unless there is some problem from the Hep c causing pain then it is a possibility. But it would be a treatment for the side effects not for the hep c itself.    
  Are you sure he said Oxycontin.

Bobby

[beamishboy]

i could,maybe...,understand doc scripting oxycontin for massive pain induced by trx drugs..but ,actually pain is tad more general in nature&coupled with nausea&such..i was given hydrocodone,vicodine,percoset  for my own discomfort-but only while treatment was ongoing...doc's much prefer we use tylenol......

[Forseegood]

at the risk of sounding a little snarky...I would analogize someone telling me they were treating their hep c with Oxycontin with Rush Limbaugh saying he was taking that stuff for his "nerves." Both dubious excuses...not to negate the fact that if someone is going through something terribly painful, a short course of it would be justified...depends on the circumstances for sure, and I'm no  doctor or expert....

[nygirl7]

He must have absolutely tremendously liberal doctor - while we do suffere different pains and aches most of us just make due taking regular OTCs with a percocet or two on the most difficult of days so as not to flood our liver with toxins from the meds.

I'd be worried about taking something like that on a regular basis with hep as it would be like drinking with hepc - not a good combo if you aren't trying to get more liver damage than you already have.

An occassional oxy would be alright - I just hope the dosage is low enough so that the liver is able to process it all without problem.

A bit odd to me too.

[Deb_c430]

oxycodon can damage your liver, it is highly addictive and Docs have a fear of perscribing it,  because of the fear addiction,   it is used for severe pain control.

Sounds strange to me a Doc knowing his addiction pattern would prescribe it for hep c  and it sure won't help cure it

Personaly I think he is pulling your leg, tho I am sure  people will disagree with me

Good Luck!

Deb

[ladywhy]

I attended my ex's one time employee's funeral this past December. He had HepC, (tx relapser) diabetes and had had surgery on his tongue which for some reason did not heal properly and it was painful. I know he had neuropathy...from diabetes or HepC, I don't know. He also was an active alcoholic 41 yo. He saw a pain management team who had him on highest dose oxycontin, dialaudid, morphine (he had scripts for all at the same time!!!!). His family couldn't believe the amount of precribed pain meds they found in his apartment..
Really sad.............

[spcecst2]

If I fail this time I'm going on the ""Oxycontin"" double dose treatment plan!!!!!!!!!! I'm gonna hit hard and long!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Deb_c430]

you know when I had my accident  and woke up at WR,   they would get annoyed with me,  because I was not going through the morphine drip fast enough, (it made me sick and the dreams were awful)  

I am the type of person who doesn't like to mask my pain,  but many can't handle that.

The man whoo passed sounds like he was in a lot of pain, not the average type.  But I think the the thought is that only you know how bad the pain is,  rate it from 1-10.   So for something so  drastic, I can almost understand it.

But for hepc?  naw.

I also think infact I know, from my own experience,  that Docs "practice" medicine.  They pass out drugs hoping that one will get you out of their hair.  Rarely  check to see how it works with everything else,  or because some like the drugs, they don't tell them

Anyway, i too think sometimes it goes to far.

[nygirl7]

My husband was the biggest drug fiend in the entire world.  He could and would do anything he could get his hands on, as much as he could. He could NOT tolerate morphine though - it made him literally psychotic in the hospital, trying to pull out his catheter to run away (he believed he was being held at work and they wouldn't let him go home).

Something about morphine....maybe it's like that with you.  Some allergy.

[Deb_c430]

It does have weird effects,  for some.  Morphine is named after the Greek (think)  God of dreams,  so horrible and for some good dreams are a well known, side. My Mom was sensative to it also.

Now picture this,  

I am barely awake in ICU at walter reed,  I had been intubated, I had lung tubes to drain them on both sides, they are about the size of little suitcases.   I have a  a cast and three metal plates in my left arm, a cast and calcaneal fracture on my right leg, so I am lopsided.  I have ivs  in and the little blue box,  have iv ports in my neck incase I arrest again. coonected.

A catheter. heart monitors and who knows what else?

My husband tells the nurse, you better restrain her, nurse says no, she will be out for the night,   he shakes his head and says you do not know her. But ok. she will escape.

She found me later standing on the end of the bed, trying to escape,  trying to figure out how to carry the lung cases.

I thought they were going to (nurses) kidnap me.  Take me to a island, I panicked so bad I told them my husband was coming to surprise them, I said I needed to meet him and my kids for coffee, I had a cleaner call my husband, tell him to come asap.

I thought they killed the guy next to me, convinced husband and daughter, but they said he just  was moved. no morphine is not my friend.

Deb

[Forseegood]

the only drug I ever really liked was blow...back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth...(if I even think of it now though, it gives me the creeps, makes me feel jumpy all over again)...but what if we could say - Try "The Two Bumps and Sniffle Sniffle - Hep C Treatment"? Sound good to anyone out there?:)

[Forseegood]

I have an allergy to any opiates too...after I had my hysterectomy, I was in such pain - I stupidly told them to go ahead and give me a morphine shot, two of em...I was in such pain.....was I in BIG trouble, I barfed my guts out for two friggin days, with the room spinning and spinning around...they had to feed me with an IV....

and anyone could figure, you got a giant incision across your guts and your using your stomach muscles to heave? OUCH OUCH OUCHY!!!!! I'll never touch any opiate again...if anyone has any other suggestions on pain pills without opiates, I'll welcome them....

[IAmTheWalrus]

I take a little Lortab occasionally (maybe a couple a week) for the side effect of disease/TX and for increasingly frequent backpain. I took Oxycontin for a couple of weeks after my transplant surgery. But, someone's pain is their pain. I hate to suffer needlessly and wouldn't wish that on anyone.

That said, I can't imagine trying to treat hepc long term with oxycontin. Quite a risk of addiction, if you ask me, especially considering the long acting release and the potential for abuse

Someone said that OTC drugs were safer for the liver. Tylenol can be obtained OTC and is deadly to the liver if taken in too large a dose. The NSAIDs (ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, etc.) are bad for the kidneys and also the liver if you have hepc. Other than the potential for addiction, I would think that straight oxycodone, or codeine, or hydrocodone (without the acetominophen found in the mixed versions of Lortab, Vicodin, et. al)., would be less toxic to the liver than just Tylenol.