DOSE:

40 mg

oral

Oxycodone

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

I'm 63 now, work full time and started having pain and numbness in my right arm and hand. After a few weeks I went to the doc. He prescribed hydrocodone and skelaxin. This didn't help. He told me to double up on the dose. I got feeling seasick, but still in pain. I got sent for an mri. Actually I had to go twice because the pain was too much to stay still the first try. I went back fortified with demerol and darvocet.

The mri led to a neurosurgeon and 4 days later I had surgery on my neck (vertebrae c3,c4,c5.) I woke up hours later with a nurse saying to my sisters, 'I gave her a shot of morphine in recovery, but she's too sensitive to this stuff. All of it.' then I went back to sleep.

The first night in hospital I vomited and ran a fever; so I had to stay another day. They sent me home with 2 scripts: 80 10mg. Oxycodone and 40 5mg. Diazepam. Both every 6 hours. Before I left the hospital the nurse said I could take 2 of the oxycodones if the pain was particularly bad.

In the first week I remember telling someone 'these things don't take away just pain! I mean this house is a screaming mess (I hadn't been able to do a bit of cleaning for about 3 months!) and I don't give a rat’s ass!

Within 2 weeks after discharge I noticed myself looking at the clock to see when I could take the next oxy. I also noted that I was sore, but not really in pain and that if these pills were, say, antibiotics, I wouldn’t be watching the clock. Later I decided to cut the pills in half, reassuring myself that I could always take 2 halves.

When I dumped the pills out for cutting I felt that very same feeling as I had as a kid when I’d look in my pillowcase of Halloween candy and think “oh, look how many candy bars I have left!!!”

Cutting the pills sometimes left crumbles and dust in the pill cutter. Without a thought I had been licking my index finger, gathering up the crumbles and putting them in my mouth.

I skipped the afternoon dose, cause I was not liking what I was noticing about myself. That night before going to sleep I took only a half an oxycodone. I woke up feeling like I was getting the flu. I had diarrhea three times in the first hour. I would feel hot then cold. I was not happy anymore. And I really didn’t want the flu!

My son came in and explained to me that I was in withdrawal. Mild. But definitely withdrawal. He suggested I needed to take another half and taper off slowly. I took a half. All better! No more flu.

We talked for awhile about this withdrawal business. Suddenly I looked at him and said, “you understand this!” he looked me in the eyes and answered, “yes.”

After a long silence I asked him, “what was it?” again, he answered one word: “speed.”

I felt so much heartbreak for him. I asked him if he’d been all alone through it? (cause I didn’t even know about it!) he said some friends helped him.

I soon got to taking a quarter pill.

One night my other son called and because he knew about my mini bout with oxy, he told me about his friend I’ll call bill. About 10 years ago bill had emergency surgery that left him facing 5 years of rehab. They said he’d never walk. He fought hard to regain that in a private gym after the physical therapists said they'd done all they could and he had to accept it: live in a wheelchair. I got to know him even better when he became a student in the community college where I work. He graduated and went on to a university. And somewhere along the way -- not after the surgery, but well into recovery -- he got into oxycodone. He was addicted 3 years. My son knows what his friend has been through, how much he has had to struggle just to be able to walk slowly with a cane. But bill had told him that getting free of oxycodone was the hardest thing he’s ever done.

That night as I was about to take my quarter section of oxycodone I suddenly threw it back in the bottle, almost shouting, “this one’s for bill!” and then for good measure, flipped it the bird. I haven’t taken anymore.

Exp Year: 2009	ExpID: 78341
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 15, 2018	Views: 3,242
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Oxycodone (176) : General (1), Addiction & Habituation (10), Families (41), Medical Use (47), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Not Applicable (38)