I'm confused and concerned; and I need advice. · 12:26am Oct 8th, 2017
I dunno how many of you know that I broke my leg roughly a month ago. I posted a blog about it, but it only got like fifteen views.
It was pretty bad. It was my right leg. I snapped my tibia clean off at the bottom, and splintered my fibula a couple inches up from the foot. Nearly dislocated it too. Tore the muscle between the two bones right the fuck apart.
It needed surgery to put back together. Two screws in the tibia. A plate with six screws, and another wild screw to hold the clusterfuck that was my fibula together. One big screw holding the two bones together so the ligaments and tendons could heal properly. Got a four inch long incision on the inside of the leg and an eight inch incision on the outside. I'm not allowed to walk or put any weight on my leg at all until the follow-up surgery to get the big screw removed in a few weeks.
That's not what I'm concerned about, though. I'm healing up nicely. The doctors even said I was healing "beautifully". Perfectly on schedule.
The issue is my pain meds. I'm concerned that I may have become addicted to them.
After surgery, they gave me some oxycodone to deal with post-op pain, and a shitload of hydrocodone for when I ran out of those. A couple weeks ago, I felt the urge to take some oxy. Not because I was in pain, but because I was missing the "buzzed" feeling they give me. I didn't take any pills then, because I wasn't hurting, and that seemed like a shitty reason to take narcotics, but it raised a flag anyway.
I ran out of oxy and started taking the hydro a week ago, and recently, I started feeling absolutely terrible whenever I woke up. Nauseous, headache, runny/stuffed-up nose, mildly achy muscles, switching between feeling too hot and too cold. All the symptoms of a bad cold; one of which had been running through the family. However, I noticed that the symptoms vanished when I took a dose of hydro. I even tried going as long as I could without the pills, and the symptoms persisted until I took some more.
I looked up the symptoms for hydrocodone withdrawal, and lo and behold: Muscle Aches, Runny Nose, Sweating, Chills, Vomiting, Headaches.
Now I'm afraid that if I keep taking my meds, the symptoms will get worse. I'm afraid I might develop a dependency.
But they prescribed me these pills and told me to keep taking them as my pain persists; and it still does. My leg still hurts. Not all the time, but often. I don't know if I could deal with the leg pains, and the hydro withdrawal. I could probably deal with one or the other, but not both together.
To make it worse, unlike the oxycodone, hydrocodone doesn't even give me any "buzz". It just makes me feel nauseous. It's not even like a guilty pleasure thing, I hate taking hydro. But it certainly kills the pain. Ibuprofen barely scratches the pain, and I can't take any other OTC painkillers for fear of liver failure, since the prescription also has a max dose of acetaminophen.
I need advice. Should I keep taking the hydrocodone? Should I stop? Should I bring up my concerns with a doctor? Am I just being paranoid?
I have no idea. I've never had any serious medical problems before. I'd never even been in the hospital until I broke my leg.
I'm afraid, and I don't know if I should be.
I'd suggest a chat with your doc. Other than that I can't offer much advice.
4690623
Yeah, ask your doctor and tell him/her your concerns. They'll help you to get weaned off your meds. Glad to hear you are expected to have a full recovery!
Talk to your doctor(s) immediately.
This could be something bad (i.e.- addiction) or something as simple as a familial response to strong medical narcotics.
ask your folks if this is somewhat common in the family, and again speak to your doctor.
if nothing else, the medical practitioners you see should be able to at least help with what is going on; this is something they HAVE to follow up on. otherwise it is a malpractice issue.
while it is something to worry about, until it is listed as something worse by a professional I would merely be cautious. Like keeping a record of when you take the meds and the effects suffered after they wear off.
Talk with the doc about your issue. With those meds it is not uncommon for the patient to form a low level addiction to the meds and there are methods to reduce the symptoms and speed the recovery from such. But the doctors need to know how this situation is progressing to know how to manage it without it blowing out of proportion. I would assume that they may give you a supplemental pain management option for when the pain is more manageable to reduce the addiction process.
In any case stay off that leg until cleared or you could wind up with a deformation that can impair walking, and try to find something that can distract you from your situation. Distractions can psychologically affect how much pain you perceive.
Definitely talk to your doctors about this. Get an expert opinion on what's happening. It's certainly no good to be in pain, but forming a dependency would obviously be extremely bad.
The reason that Oxycontin is addictive is because it's essentially Heroin.