Limbaugh's lawyers win ruling to fight questioning of doctor

Well....glad to hear you have it under control. I was given hydocodone...I think that's how it's spelled.....from a dentist last year. I took one and I got very sick....I was actually bedridden fromit.....I flushed the rest.....it was STRONG!

Has anyone noticed that prosecutors are slowly turning into crooks?

Just being slowly exposed. It has been going on for years. It is probably more politically motivated now than before. Previously it was personally political, smaller scale, rather than nationally political.

actually - all the lawyers AND judges are turning into the criminals. Here's how they were handled the last time they tried to rule over FREE PEOPLE ....

Prosecutors cited prescriptions Limbaugh received between March 2003 and September 2003, when pharmacy records show Limbaugh picked up 1,733 hydrocodone pills, 90 OxyContin pills, 50 Xanax tablets and 40 pills of time-release morphine.

Anyone reading this would agree that Limbaugh must be a krook and a criminal if he was taking/getting that many narcotic pills. Geez, 1733 hydrocodone pills? Certainly no normal person would need that many?

Of course, bringing a little factual information to the prosecutor's gunfight, let's do a quick search on the web. We find, according to U of Kansas Pharmacy Key:

Dosage should be adjusted to the severity of the pain and the response of the patient. However, tolerance to hydrocodone can develop with continued usage and the incidence of side effects is dose related. The usual dosage for hydrocodone 5mg/500mg APAP is one to two tablets every four to six hours as needed for pain. The 24 hour total should not exceed 8 tablets.

So if you have some major pain and are trying to get rid of it, you would probably take 8 tabs or the max dosage. If you were really in pain and building a tolerance to the stuff, and realized that there's a bit of a safety factor built into the max dosage limit, you may take more than the 8 per day.

Now doing some rather elementary school mathematics, if you had some chronic or intractable pain for 6 months - March thru Sept. say - the normal max dosage for those "Tylenol 3" (hydrocodone/acetaminophen) tabs (which used to be able to be purchased OTC in Canada) would require you to have 1440 of those little pills. That's 8/day x 30 days/mo. x 6 months.

Of course, your pain wouldn't probably go away for the day when those months had 31 days, and maybe on some days, the pain may be so bad that you might take a little over the max recommended dosage. Are we getting close to that 1733 number yet? And we haven't even really exceeded the normal recommended dosage by much at all.

Looking a little further at the KUMC Pharmacy pages, we find:

Hydrocodone/APAP combination products are indicated for the relief of moderate to moderately severe pain. The analgesia effect is comparable to that of codeine and less than that of oxycodone.

So if you have some really severe pain - and subjectively who doesn't? - you may not be getting relief from the standard dosage.

But geez, what a dope fiend Limbaugh must be/have been, huh? Hooked on narcotics! Then we find the following paragraph on the same KUMC Pharmacy site:

All narcotic analgesics have abuse potential. Psychological dependence and physical tolerance and dependence may develop upon repeated or prolonged use. Most patients who receive opiates for medical reasons do not develop dependence syndromes.

But Limbaugh was getting all kinds of narcotics, so he musta really been a doper, huh? Well, actually no, according to the medical literature:

...some IP [intractible pain] patients require multiple opioids...

and in at least one state- Kalifornia, based on the California Pain Patient's Bill of Rights (Health and Safety Code 124960 & 124961) - an intractible pain patient is allowed to request or reject any treatment or dosage of a drug which relieves their pain regardless of whether their doctor, family, or a government agency likes it. Only in Kalifornia, huh? Maybe Rush should move there. Or maybe the prosecutor in Floriduh should do a few minutes of research and math. Or consult a pain specialist.

So five minutes of research on the web would show that Limbaugh's stash of pills were completely within usual dosages for chronic pain sufferers, and at least in California, all those pills would be pretty standard practise for a pain patient.

Then he would see that there are people including physicians who feel that chronic and intractible pain is under medicated by most doctors. And in fact there is a new specialty based on this - the Pain Specialist.

So it looks like Mr. Prosecutor in Floriduh is trying to either 1) persecute a popular, conservative talk show host or 2) prepping for running for higher public office based upon the publicity generated by #1.

Gee, ya think?

Here's how they were handled the last time they tried to rule over FREE PEOPLE ....

Well, there was also "Judge" Roy Bean, the law west of the Pecos. He pretty well ruled and wasn't even a judge. Didn't bother with the nuisance of a jury to slow things down.