Too many opioids prescribed: study
A new study alleges that people come out of consulting in emergency rooms with prescriptions for too many opioids, most of which they don’t take, but end up being sold to or taken by others.
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CE 12:22 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
I had my wisdom teeth out a few years ago and they gave me prescriptions for three different painkillers, including Percocet. I got the mild pain killer and T3s but not the other. I hardly even used the T3s and had a bunch sitting in my medicine cabinet for years just in case. There’s no way I would have ever used all those drugs and I had complications which caused my recovery to be longer and more painful than normal.
azrhey 12:27 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
I had my gallbladder removed Sept 2023 , they discharged be with 60 Oxycodone. I told them I didn’t need them as pain didn’t even warrant an advil, but they insisted I took them with me and wouldn’t let me go without them. Took them to the pharmacy to be destroyed two weeks later.
It was so weird, because I kept telling them that if my worst migraines were a 10 the pain I was in was at most a 3 or 4 and they nearly called me a liar?
I know I have a high body pain tolerance due to migraines being the worst… but the insisting on not discharging me if I didn’t take the drugs with me was very strange.
First, last, time at HSP LaSalle….
Kate 13:13 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
azrhey, I had the same surgery about ten years ago, and a similar story. Rx for oxycodone, but I never needed it. I don’t even have migraines as a benchmark. I think the pills are still in my medicine cabinet, maybe I should turn them in.
Ian 13:39 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
They’ve certainly expired by now but yeah, you should always turn in meds.
jeather 14:46 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
I keep old ones in case I need them. Usually expired just means potency is lower, which is fine. I’ve never had more than a half dozen extra, they get used up eventually. Somewhat embarrassingly, the last one I had I used for a really painful hangnail. But it worked! I do not have addiction issues, and no one with addiction issues has access to my bathroom, so it seems better to just keep them.
Ian 14:49 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
Fair enough, I just have a paranoia around things “going bad” and killing me.
Ephraim 14:51 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
Damn… they never give me the good stuff. I end up leaving with Diclofenac and ibuprofen. Why won’t they give me the good stuff? What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I get the fun stuff?
jeather 14:56 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
There’s nothing wrong with disposing of them properly. I just hate waste and appreciate the security. It’s been years since I had any and to tell the truth the last ones I had were prescribed to my (late) grandmother, who asked me to keep them for her.
Kate 15:15 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
jeather, that’s more or less what I had in the back of my mind. What if I had a bad toothache on a Friday night?
Nicholas 15:21 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
There was a study by the US Army a while ago on drug shelf life. They keep a lot of drugs on hand, and use and replace what they can, but many expire. So they tested potency over 15 years after production and found most drugs were fine. Some were less potent, but they still had most of the effect generally, and weren’t dangerous. The one exception is tetracycline, which transforms into a toxic substance over time, so you should absolutely dispose of it once it expires. Not a doctor, ymmv, etc.
Tee Owe 15:54 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
Thanks Nicholas – that’s useful information
Ian 16:53 on 2024-07-16 Permalink
@Ephraim I hear ya, buddy. I got all 4 wisdom teeth out at once and all I got was local and valium.
dhomas 05:22 on 2024-07-17 Permalink
@Nicholas on the topic of tetracycline, the same could and should be said about most antibiotics. You should not take expired antibiotics, especially liquid antibiotics (that usually require refrigeration). Not only can they go bad, but the loss of potency can lead to antibiotic resistence. Expired antibiotics should be disposed of correctly at the pharmacy (and not, for example, flushed down the toilet).
Most other medication is fine way past the expiry date. I’ve take ibuprofen that I’d forgotten in some luggage about 10 years after I got it and it was still quite effective, for example.
azrhey 09:22 on 2024-07-17 Permalink
I really don’t mind (most) expired medicine I still have a tube of hydrocortisone that expired in 2018 that I still use once or twice a year for a freak skin rash and I thik most of my ibuprofen is also expired but hey still works… I did get rid of the oxy because I some people with addiction issues do have access to my pharmacy from time to time and better not tempt anyone…
As for how to get the good stuff… I don’t I know… took me years to convince my neuro to put me on triptans for the migraines because “it can’t be that bad” but I was again prescribed way too many oxy when I broke my radius? So AFAIK, it’s a bit random…
Joey 11:06 on 2024-07-17 Permalink
@azrhey I wonder if they just got fed up with people coming back post-surgery because of pain management, and figured it would be beneficial to the hospital to load everyone up with scripts even if it created an addiction risk (that would not involve the particular hospital unit)
From a previous life working on drug shortage policy, one of the low-hanging fruit of managing shortages is to see if expiration dates can be pushed (depending on the results of potency/safety tests). This came up quite a bit, IIRC, during the paediatric painkiller shortage in 2022/23.
Ephraim 12:19 on 2024-07-17 Permalink
@Ian – Vallum? You are getting better stuff than me. Diclofenac and Ibuprofen are OTC. When I was in deep daily pain, I was on Duloxetine, which is an SSRI used for neuropathic pain. So basically, I couldn’t be sad about the fact that I was in pain.
Only time I ever get the good stuff was in hospital as a general anaesthetic for surgery and for “gems of discomfort”. Never take home!
Ian 21:23 on 2024-07-17 Permalink
Just one valium, nothing fun.