Aa
Vicodin
Can you become addicted to Vicodin in one week? My doctor put me on it for pain. Because I am sensitive to medications I only take 1/2 in the morning and 1/2 at night. I take Tylenol inbetween. I had what I might call withdrawl even though I didn't stop taking it. Suffer from depression and would really like to put a stop to the medication if that is what caused it. My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest, chest pain, body shaking and scared. It lasted about 10 minutes and I felt like I might die. Or , was this a panic attack?
Thanks for your help
Thanks for your help
Sorry I didn't see this post right away !! It was a thought provoking expose' on how the government has it's fingers in every pie to negatively affect the lives of people like yourself and those who can and should be able to provide quality care to improve your life.
I agree totally!!!!
]
You make an interesting point in your comment about my concern for my daughter. That she does not have chronic pain and was not a narcotic pill addict ( benzo's yes... different drug and use altogether) would not relate to heroin use except that a legitimate script for severe and prolonged pain could re-awaken addiction. I think that just comes with the territory and there is no easy way to predict where truth and integrity of the recovery process will be diminished by the desire to continue with meds when they may no longer be needed. No doctor can police this accurately. Pain is a horrible insidious thing.... only the person with it can know what they need.
This may sound dumb... but it seems that since narcotics certainly do create involuntary addiction and cause major life problems... and that pain is also a major problem ... that there should be a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I thought that pain management clinics were the places that could determine via medical understanding of the causes of pain how to treat those people with serious intractable pain for as long as needed.... are they also sending people out the door and dismissing them as med seeking ??? There is a big pain management clinic in my town. I have no clue though what other areas offer. I figured that patients such as those in Dr. Hurwitz practice could find relief from places such as this. ( ?????????) And I figured that they would have more elbow room to prescribe without fear of DEA actions. I am speaking of doctors who are trained as pain management specialists. ???????????????????? Maybe they have lot's of restraints put on them.... I really do not know so maybe you can tell me.
So basically, does a person with serious chronic pain have more success at a specialty practice and do specialty practices for pain have more privilege in long term prescribing and dosages than an non pain specialist ??
Is there any machine or test that can "see" pain and it's intensity which can be used as a diagnostic tool to learn if there is pain and how intense ???
You can see, Annie, that I am very clueless about this type of thing and maybe we can educate people like myself who would want to give unrestrained treatment to those who really need it and reduce the problem of non-medical addicts trying to perpetrate an opiate need for a pain need. (And that in itself is another issue that I also am sensitive to... true addiction.)
Love, Brighty
I agree totally!!!!
]
You make an interesting point in your comment about my concern for my daughter. That she does not have chronic pain and was not a narcotic pill addict ( benzo's yes... different drug and use altogether) would not relate to heroin use except that a legitimate script for severe and prolonged pain could re-awaken addiction. I think that just comes with the territory and there is no easy way to predict where truth and integrity of the recovery process will be diminished by the desire to continue with meds when they may no longer be needed. No doctor can police this accurately. Pain is a horrible insidious thing.... only the person with it can know what they need.
This may sound dumb... but it seems that since narcotics certainly do create involuntary addiction and cause major life problems... and that pain is also a major problem ... that there should be a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I thought that pain management clinics were the places that could determine via medical understanding of the causes of pain how to treat those people with serious intractable pain for as long as needed.... are they also sending people out the door and dismissing them as med seeking ??? There is a big pain management clinic in my town. I have no clue though what other areas offer. I figured that patients such as those in Dr. Hurwitz practice could find relief from places such as this. ( ?????????) And I figured that they would have more elbow room to prescribe without fear of DEA actions. I am speaking of doctors who are trained as pain management specialists. ???????????????????? Maybe they have lot's of restraints put on them.... I really do not know so maybe you can tell me.
So basically, does a person with serious chronic pain have more success at a specialty practice and do specialty practices for pain have more privilege in long term prescribing and dosages than an non pain specialist ??
Is there any machine or test that can "see" pain and it's intensity which can be used as a diagnostic tool to learn if there is pain and how intense ???
You can see, Annie, that I am very clueless about this type of thing and maybe we can educate people like myself who would want to give unrestrained treatment to those who really need it and reduce the problem of non-medical addicts trying to perpetrate an opiate need for a pain need. (And that in itself is another issue that I also am sensitive to... true addiction.)
Love, Brighty
....Don't get me started on them, JB. I get in arguments on the phone w/ those incompetent A-holes....lol My dad owns his business....and my mom fussed at me for telling them off. lmao
We own our business also. I have to send everything certified receipt.....Cause they say "we didnt get it.", it never arrived. lol.....yeah right.
Love ya
Annie
We own our business also. I have to send everything certified receipt.....Cause they say "we didnt get it.", it never arrived. lol.....yeah right.
Love ya
Annie
Don't forget about the allmighty above-the-law Internal Revenue Service. They've been on my tail since 1982. Maybe we need another Revolutionary War? J.B.
The support you give me in my beliefs of the whole ordeal...gives me courage. I am glad that You(Tom), Spook, Brighty, Cindi, JB, Dee Dee, Kerri, Pelle, Hope...Gee I could go on and on......have supported me here on this "addiction" forum. I suspected that there was a serious problem in our legal system years ago. It wasn't till I came here, that I realized my assumptions were accurate...an addiction forum, of all places.
Eventhough you all have been through a living hell w/ drugs and have every right to nock 'em down.....you have supported my beliefs where they are concerned. I am angry, sad, and totally dismayed by what I have found out via the internet, about "the war on drugs." I've only had my computer for 8 months...so I had no access to these stories beforehand. Isn't it ironic that when I needed the pain medication the most, we had decided to get a computer for our business. The events unfolded in such a timely manner. Then I discoverd you all. Wow, a place that I could come to, and speak my heart and mind. Would have never believed it. Thank you for you support, Tom/Pat. I really need it.
Love ya!
Annie
Eventhough you all have been through a living hell w/ drugs and have every right to nock 'em down.....you have supported my beliefs where they are concerned. I am angry, sad, and totally dismayed by what I have found out via the internet, about "the war on drugs." I've only had my computer for 8 months...so I had no access to these stories beforehand. Isn't it ironic that when I needed the pain medication the most, we had decided to get a computer for our business. The events unfolded in such a timely manner. Then I discoverd you all. Wow, a place that I could come to, and speak my heart and mind. Would have never believed it. Thank you for you support, Tom/Pat. I really need it.
Love ya!
Annie
Your Dr. Hurwitz story is heartrending and infuriating. To be honest, I hate the DEA. I don't believe they've ever done anyone any good, ever. They're effort in the "war on drugs" is a sad joke. The dealers remain untouched while the easy victims, the law-abiding pain patients among us get crucified. Why? Because it's easy to prosecute law abiding citizens. Professional criminals are much harder to prosecute. It's common knowledge that most DEA field agents are practicing drugs addicts themselves, either out of necessity in order to make drug deals without getting a bullet in the head, or simply because they have access and unlimited freedom to use. Down with the DEA, I say. Send them all to a special rehab for assholes.
I'm going to answer your prior question on this thread. I didn't post the whole testimony up there, because I didn't want to use up to much space in the Hedhurtz thread.
As far as I know, Dr. Hurwitz was exonerated on all 6 counts, eventhough; they still gave him trouble....What ever happend to "innocent after found not guilty??" There was another doctor accused: Dr. Solomon. He was not so lucky.
Here is the rest of the testimony:
When my patients came to see me, they were terrified that I too would reject them, or subject them to more tests, more procedures, more expense and delay. But my approach was different. I asked them what had worked in the past, and that was my starting point. I let their response to medication guide my treatment. If one medication didn't work, or made them sick, we - the patient and I - tried another. If a medication became less effective, we increased the dose. Sooner or later, we found what worked best for each patient.
The response to pain relief was dramatic. People who hadn't worked in years went back to work. People who could barely get out of bed began to move, even to dance. Some no longer needed crutches or a cane. Almost everyone reported that their lives were better. Many said that I had given them their lives back.
When word went out that my license had been suspended, there was panic as patients contemplated what it would mean for the pain to return. Lives that had been rebuilt on the basis of pain control had lost their foundations.
(Note: In this photo at right patients laid on the floor in agony as the Medical Board couldn't care less about their pain. That, and with what they did to ME, made me mad enough to stop working and help the patients, starting years of therapy that I'm still in. Several others committed suicide which I barely escaped, and one died of shock after his meds were taken away overnight by police. Dr. Hurwitz is not my doctor yet I could not avoid helping his patients. At one point Jim Klimek, above with no legs, drove 3000 miles for just two refills as I rode along. Another atrocity, but done by a pharmacist who "gouged" him by $2000 thanks to those uncaring Board Members. That kind of "Medical Board" must be done away with forever. Skip).
After I lost my license, the fear was palpable: pharmacists afraid to fill my prescriptions, doctors afraid to take my patients, and patients desperate for continuity and certainty. Added to the stigma of taking morphine, methadone, or Dilaudid, was the stigma of being one of "Dr. Hurwitz's" patients.
There were a few happy stories. A few physicians who had known my patients before they came to me and saw their improvement while under my care were willing to continue the treatment. Pain specialists at some of the academic centers and a few brave doctors in private practice were willing to take my patients. Some of my patients, those who had saved a reserve supply, were able to obtain a modicum of pain relief and avoid the symptoms of abrupt withdrawal.
Some stories were not so happy. A few patients went through horrible withdrawals - a number who availed themselves of medical help were admitted to psych units and detoxed cold turkey. Some found doctors who were willing to treat them, but were unwilling to continue what had been successful medication regimens. Some were exploited by doctors who imposed expensive and risky procedures as a condition for receiving pain medication. And some just gave up, exhausted by insurmountable obstacles.
There were two suicides directly attributable to the prospect of inadequate pain control.
How Does The Police-State of Medicine Affect Medical Care?
The quasi-criminal liability imposed on physicians distorts clinical information and medical judgment, impedes the development of clinical expertise, undermines the ethical commitments necessary to medical practice, and leads to the abandonment, wasted lives, and deaths of patients with intractable pain. Holding physicians liable for the misbehavior or dishonesty of their patients turns physicians into policemen and is, in principle, incompatible with effective medical care.
In what other context do we sit in judgment of a patient's moral worth to determine his eligibility for treatment? Is a former addict with AIDS less entitled to medical care than the victim of a contaminated transfusion? Or less entitled to pain relief with opioid medications?
To me, the unequivocal answer is no. We are not society's policemen, nor should we be. I am not arguing that we should be indifferent to the use to which our prescriptions are put. I am arguing that patients deserve the benefit of the doubt, that a Draconian response to the occasional, but inevitable physician error in providing medication to the dishonest patient who may be misusing or diverting medication has the inevitable consequence of denying pain relief and perhaps condemning to death the honest one.
Effective medical care requires trust in both directions. A patient must trust that his physician is acting in the patient's medical interest. But how is this possible when the physician's career is threatened by doing so? A physician must trust that his patient is reporting his circumstances and symptoms accurately. How is this possible when the patient is afraid that the truth will look suspicious, and that merely looking suspicious will prompt abandonment?
Under current regulatory policies, distrust governs the treatment of pain and subverts the usual clinical calculus of risk and benefit. Patients are subjected to a modern version of trial by ordeal, where their credibility as patients is measured by the pain and indignity they are willing to endure and the expense they are willing to incur. And physicians who are unwilling to impose these indignities as a condition for pain treatment are punished with the destruction of career, reputation, and livelihood.
In the end, the only important clinical question should be: What is best for the patient? As physicians, we treat individuals for the simple reason that they are fellow human beings, and our treatment must respect their humanity. Respect requires that patients be afforded the dignity of choice - the freedom to choose or refuse treatments based on their calculus of risk and benefit and cost. The current regulatory regime effectively denies most patients the dignity and respect that simple humanity requires.
What Can We Do About It?
The stakes in this battle are too great to leave its outcome to the valiant efforts of the dedicated few. We need reinforcements in the form of legal help, publicity, and financial support to help make boards of medicine and the DEA legally and politically accountable for the misery they engender. Intractable pain acts are not enough. And if boards of medicine were, as a practical matter, legally, ethically and politically accountable, such statutes would not be necessary.
Our strategy should be to raise the cost to the regulators of their regulatory tyranny and to lower the cost to physicians, pharmacists, and patients of defending their rights. We need to destroy the public's naive presumption of the regulators disinterested good faith, to debunk the myth that medicine is being regulated in the public interest, and to reveal the abuse of power for what it is. Only then will we empower physicians to help their patients, and patients to control their pain.
THIS IS MY PROBLEM W/ THE DEA. THIS DOCTOR WAS BRAVE, AND DIDN'T HAVE THE HEART TO TURN HIS PATIENTS AWAY. LOOK HOW THEY USED HIM IN THEIR PLATFORM OF THE "WAR ON DRUGS." I KNOW YOUR CONCERNS ARE FOR YOUR DAUGHTER'S ADDICTION, BUT WHEN WE "POLICE DOCTORS AND MEDICINE" THE WAY WE HAVE, IT EFFECTS ALL FACETS OF TREATMENT AND MEDICINE;THEREFORE EFFECTING ALL OF US.
LOVE,
ANNIE
As far as I know, Dr. Hurwitz was exonerated on all 6 counts, eventhough; they still gave him trouble....What ever happend to "innocent after found not guilty??" There was another doctor accused: Dr. Solomon. He was not so lucky.
Here is the rest of the testimony:
When my patients came to see me, they were terrified that I too would reject them, or subject them to more tests, more procedures, more expense and delay. But my approach was different. I asked them what had worked in the past, and that was my starting point. I let their response to medication guide my treatment. If one medication didn't work, or made them sick, we - the patient and I - tried another. If a medication became less effective, we increased the dose. Sooner or later, we found what worked best for each patient.
The response to pain relief was dramatic. People who hadn't worked in years went back to work. People who could barely get out of bed began to move, even to dance. Some no longer needed crutches or a cane. Almost everyone reported that their lives were better. Many said that I had given them their lives back.
When word went out that my license had been suspended, there was panic as patients contemplated what it would mean for the pain to return. Lives that had been rebuilt on the basis of pain control had lost their foundations.
(Note: In this photo at right patients laid on the floor in agony as the Medical Board couldn't care less about their pain. That, and with what they did to ME, made me mad enough to stop working and help the patients, starting years of therapy that I'm still in. Several others committed suicide which I barely escaped, and one died of shock after his meds were taken away overnight by police. Dr. Hurwitz is not my doctor yet I could not avoid helping his patients. At one point Jim Klimek, above with no legs, drove 3000 miles for just two refills as I rode along. Another atrocity, but done by a pharmacist who "gouged" him by $2000 thanks to those uncaring Board Members. That kind of "Medical Board" must be done away with forever. Skip).
After I lost my license, the fear was palpable: pharmacists afraid to fill my prescriptions, doctors afraid to take my patients, and patients desperate for continuity and certainty. Added to the stigma of taking morphine, methadone, or Dilaudid, was the stigma of being one of "Dr. Hurwitz's" patients.
There were a few happy stories. A few physicians who had known my patients before they came to me and saw their improvement while under my care were willing to continue the treatment. Pain specialists at some of the academic centers and a few brave doctors in private practice were willing to take my patients. Some of my patients, those who had saved a reserve supply, were able to obtain a modicum of pain relief and avoid the symptoms of abrupt withdrawal.
Some stories were not so happy. A few patients went through horrible withdrawals - a number who availed themselves of medical help were admitted to psych units and detoxed cold turkey. Some found doctors who were willing to treat them, but were unwilling to continue what had been successful medication regimens. Some were exploited by doctors who imposed expensive and risky procedures as a condition for receiving pain medication. And some just gave up, exhausted by insurmountable obstacles.
There were two suicides directly attributable to the prospect of inadequate pain control.
How Does The Police-State of Medicine Affect Medical Care?
The quasi-criminal liability imposed on physicians distorts clinical information and medical judgment, impedes the development of clinical expertise, undermines the ethical commitments necessary to medical practice, and leads to the abandonment, wasted lives, and deaths of patients with intractable pain. Holding physicians liable for the misbehavior or dishonesty of their patients turns physicians into policemen and is, in principle, incompatible with effective medical care.
In what other context do we sit in judgment of a patient's moral worth to determine his eligibility for treatment? Is a former addict with AIDS less entitled to medical care than the victim of a contaminated transfusion? Or less entitled to pain relief with opioid medications?
To me, the unequivocal answer is no. We are not society's policemen, nor should we be. I am not arguing that we should be indifferent to the use to which our prescriptions are put. I am arguing that patients deserve the benefit of the doubt, that a Draconian response to the occasional, but inevitable physician error in providing medication to the dishonest patient who may be misusing or diverting medication has the inevitable consequence of denying pain relief and perhaps condemning to death the honest one.
Effective medical care requires trust in both directions. A patient must trust that his physician is acting in the patient's medical interest. But how is this possible when the physician's career is threatened by doing so? A physician must trust that his patient is reporting his circumstances and symptoms accurately. How is this possible when the patient is afraid that the truth will look suspicious, and that merely looking suspicious will prompt abandonment?
Under current regulatory policies, distrust governs the treatment of pain and subverts the usual clinical calculus of risk and benefit. Patients are subjected to a modern version of trial by ordeal, where their credibility as patients is measured by the pain and indignity they are willing to endure and the expense they are willing to incur. And physicians who are unwilling to impose these indignities as a condition for pain treatment are punished with the destruction of career, reputation, and livelihood.
In the end, the only important clinical question should be: What is best for the patient? As physicians, we treat individuals for the simple reason that they are fellow human beings, and our treatment must respect their humanity. Respect requires that patients be afforded the dignity of choice - the freedom to choose or refuse treatments based on their calculus of risk and benefit and cost. The current regulatory regime effectively denies most patients the dignity and respect that simple humanity requires.
What Can We Do About It?
The stakes in this battle are too great to leave its outcome to the valiant efforts of the dedicated few. We need reinforcements in the form of legal help, publicity, and financial support to help make boards of medicine and the DEA legally and politically accountable for the misery they engender. Intractable pain acts are not enough. And if boards of medicine were, as a practical matter, legally, ethically and politically accountable, such statutes would not be necessary.
Our strategy should be to raise the cost to the regulators of their regulatory tyranny and to lower the cost to physicians, pharmacists, and patients of defending their rights. We need to destroy the public's naive presumption of the regulators disinterested good faith, to debunk the myth that medicine is being regulated in the public interest, and to reveal the abuse of power for what it is. Only then will we empower physicians to help their patients, and patients to control their pain.
THIS IS MY PROBLEM W/ THE DEA. THIS DOCTOR WAS BRAVE, AND DIDN'T HAVE THE HEART TO TURN HIS PATIENTS AWAY. LOOK HOW THEY USED HIM IN THEIR PLATFORM OF THE "WAR ON DRUGS." I KNOW YOUR CONCERNS ARE FOR YOUR DAUGHTER'S ADDICTION, BUT WHEN WE "POLICE DOCTORS AND MEDICINE" THE WAY WE HAVE, IT EFFECTS ALL FACETS OF TREATMENT AND MEDICINE;THEREFORE EFFECTING ALL OF US.
LOVE,
ANNIE
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