Rush's Dilemma: The Truth about Oxycontin

Patriot Paradox ^

[sonsofliberty2000]

Rush is not alone. Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh came out in what had to be a hard and very painful statement to tell his audience that :

Over the past several years I've tried to break my dependence on pain pills and in fact I've twice checked myself into medical facilities in an attempt to do so. But I recently agreed with my doctor about the next steps. So. Immediately following this broadcast, I will check myself into a treatment center for the next 30 days to once and for all break the hold that this highly-addictive medication has on me.

Highly-addicted is an understatement. Oxycontin is an agonist opioid. According to HowStuffWorks.com:

Opioid agonists are some of the most effective pain relievers available. Unlike other analgesics, opioid agonists have an increasing analgesic effect with increased doses. Meaning that the more you take, the better you feel. Other analgesics, like aspirin or acetaminophen, have a threshold to their effectiveness. You can see why, particularly for people who suffer chronic pain, a medication like OxyContin can be so beneficial: It can potentially provide up to four times the relief of a non-opioid analgesic, so even the most severe degree of pain can be managed.

So the more you take the better you feel. And why is it so addictive:

Rather than ingesting the pill as indicated, people who abuse OxyContin use other methods of administering the drug. To avoid the controlled-release mechanism, they either chew, snort or inject the medication to get an instant and intense "high." Frequent and repeated use of the drug can cause the user to develop a tolerance to its effects, so larger doses are required to elicit the desired sensation and the abuser gets increasingly addicted to the drug.

What can come about from oxycontin abuse. Death for one. Look at this info from the National Drug Intelligence Center:

Several deaths have resulted specifically from the abuse of OxyContin in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. The Pike County, Kentucky, Coroner reported 19 OxyContin-related deaths during calendar year 2000. In December 2000, seven OxyContin overdose deaths were reported in Southeastern Kentucky by two Kentucky State Police posts. The Logan Daily News reported in October 2000 that four Hocking County, Ohio, residents overdosed on OxyContin over an 18-day period. Two of the four died. There have been at least four OxyContin overdose deaths in Pulaski, Virginia, since 1998. In July 2000, The Williamson Daily reported five OxyContin-related overdose deaths in southwestern West Virginia since May 2000.

I want to talk a little more about the last bit there about southwestern West Virginia. Gilbert, WV in paticular. Why? I grew up and visit there often and I want to tell you that it is depressing. Oxycontin is the number one drug in that area, and the hell it has caused can be seen and is on the lips of everyone you talk to. Stores have closed because owners abused the drug, and lives are ruined.

One article at HealingWell.com has a blurb from Gilbert:

And Gilbert, W.V., police call the drug the worst they've ever dealt with, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center, which last month issued an advisory on the drug and similar products.

and the Media Awareness Project has an article from the Charleston Gazette about the epidemic in Gilbert:

The 41-year-old hairdresser says she has been around at least one person on OxyContin.

"It's like people under the influence are really intoxicated - highly intoxicated," says Vicki Stanley, who lives in the unlikely drug cradle of Gilbert. "Then when they're trying to come off, it's like they have the flu - - muscle cramps, body aches, sick at their stomachs.

"And that's just the physical addiction. The mental addiction is worse."

For the last couple of months, Stanley and other residents of this Mingo County town have been grappling with what they say is a narcotic epidemic.

According to families and friends, a good percentage of the town's population of 456 has developed an appetite for OxyContin, a potent opiate used to treat pain.

...

Palmer keeps abreast of the Gilbert group's activities. He said residents report people selling the pills at Gilbert High football games. Parents of students have entered the school, attempting to peddle the drug, he said.

How bad is it when parents of students are peddling this stuff? In a letter to Tommy Thompson, Congressman Frank Wolf laid out the issues better then most:

Several pharmacies in my congressional District have been robbed at gun point in recent months for OxyContin. No money was taken; the robbers only demanded the drug. Earlier this month, a prominent defense lawyer in northern Virginia who twice served as a local prosecutor in Prince William County pleaded guilty to federal drug charges linked to a large-scale investigation into the illegal distribution of OxyContin and other painkillers.

Communities where the illegal drug has taken hold are being completely destroyed. I am told there is one county in southwest Virginia where no one isn’t either using the drug, knows someone using the drug or been the victim of a crime by someone needing the drug.

When a professional baseball player recently died after taking the dietary supplement ephedra, your agency immediately issued fact sheets regarding potential serious risks of dietary supplements containing ephedra. You were even quoted as cautioning all Americans about using dietary supplements that contain ephedra.

According to fact sheets produced by the FDA, two deaths, four heart attacks, nine strokes and five psychiatric cases involving ephedra have been reported. More than 240 people have died from the abuse of OxyContin and countless numbers of families and communities have been torn apart by this drug.

What should be done? I don't know. Stricter regulations won't do anything, education might, but the hold of this drug is hard to break. Ask Rush. Ask anyone in Gilbert, "where no one isn’t either using the drug, knows someone using the drug or been the victim of a crime by someone needing the drug". Yeah, my birthplace, a place where I still have family I love, a family that if I asked about this drug would be able to tell me many stories of its horrible reign, was the county Wold mentioned. In a way it was a good thing that happened to Rush. I'm thankful he was given a wake-up call. Should he be ashamed? No, he should be thankful. Maybe Rush will put a human face on this epidemic. If left up to the media, however, it will probably be all about the smear campaign.

[CometBaby]

Thanks for posting this .. it's a very good explanation of the drug and it's effects.

I have been discussing Rush's hypocrisy on this issue with others, and they seem to make a distinction between therapeutic and recreation use, as in ..

"He has not criticized others for therapeutic drug use, or addiction--but for recreational use."

The arguement being that Rush was not a hypocrite because he was using it for therapeutic purposes (to relieve pain) and was not a recreational user (to get high). Obviously, this ignores the question of legal/illegal drug usage and focuses on his *reason* for the drug abuse.

I'll be the first to admit I do not know much about drugs and/or drug abuse. Does anyone have an opinion, regarding the legitimacy of this arguement? Initially I rejected it, but I am now reconsidering it's merits.

[ChemistCat]

Elavil is terrific for chronic pain and transforms restless, shallow sleep that never goes into the REM stage into deeper, restful sleep that does. Most of the body's healing and long-term memory are done during REM sleep. People with multiple myalgias often do not get that good sleep, and so their perception of pain is markedly worse than normal.

Once you have adjusted to Elavil, it is a great pain management tool. It also helps to even out mood. Chronic pain makes a person irritable or depressed, or both. It is very rare to meet a truly cheerful person who suffers chronic pain. They're out there, but for the most part any cheerfulness is a front or a sign of deep religious faith.

That said, I won't take Elavil anymore. I'm convinced by my chemical research that this drug damaged my retinas and caused my heart rhythm abnormality. We are complex bags of biochemistry. The law of unintended consequences definitely applies to medications. I think we should all medicate as if we are pregnant--take only what we absolutely cannot live without, because we are at risk of damaging ourselves in the long or short term from the interactions of everything we ingest.

I don't want to make the drug companies responsible for the damage the drugs caused me in combination for other drugs. I think we do need to be much better informed, as consumers, before we ingest. So the drug companies do have an obligation to make the information about their studies available to laypersons, AND they need to do more testing. To do more testing, the very stringent rules about how studies need to be done should be relaxed. RIght now the FDA makes it far too expensive to do studies on safety and effectiveness, especially on combinations of popular drugs.

If you're a man taking Viagra and Elavil, two very popular drugs, for instance, you should be able to find out what the combination might be doing to your body. Right now the studies on interactions just haven't been done because they are so expensive to do, not even for the permutations of the very biggest selling drugs.

The interactions of chemistry in our bodies are too complex to study in necessary detail, of course. That's as true for sucrose and trans-fatty acids as it is for oxycontin, of course--there's a risk to everything we do, and the risks multiply in combination! The trick is to minimize the risk and maximize the benefits. Most of us are not prepared to assess these factors ourselves, and rely on doctors and pharmacists who don't remember a bit of their college chemistry!

[Mo1]

Patients are obtaining the meds through channels other than their doctors. Rush apparently used his maid to get pills - his doctor isn't at fault here.

I understand that and I also understand that doctors can't be responsible if their patient abuses these drugs.

But chronic pain just doesn't go away, especially if there is a history of it

I don't know the whole story behind Rush's problem or what his doctor may have or may not have done

But in general, common sense tells me, from what I've read so far .. this drug needs to be monitored .. that is without the Gov putting some stupid law on the books

[wardaddy]

BTTT

[boycott]

Anti-depressanst are not the same as a drug like Oxycontin.

My comment was about drugs being over prescribed. This was just an example.

[lonestar]

That stuff sounds really bad! I hope he can get offand stay off. Rush might save lives by making the public more aware. I had never heard of the drug.

I have a friend who fell and hit her head two weeks ago. She was on Tylenol 4 (headaches) for a week and was having withdrawals from getting off.

I'm glad I'm not even an over-the-counter pill popper!

[johnwayne]

Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft as you said are anti-depressants. I don't believe they are addictive, nor do they make the patient high. Pain killers make you high and some can be highly addictive. My point is, prescribing large doses of anti-depresants is not equivalent to prescribing large doses of pain killers.

[wardaddy]

Elavil is a tri-cyclic antidepressant like Triavil etc is it not?

That would not entail analgesic properties on it's on. You are saying it has synergistic effects when combined with narcotics much like many docs prescribe promethiazine(phenergan) as an anti-emetic and kicker when prescribing percocet or lortab etc. Mepergan which is primarily Demerol also has promethiazine added from the getgo and is a fav of oral surgeons.

I have known folks to take Elavil as strictly psychological treatment a lot....usually if something like Wellbutrin is ineffective. I guess the serotonin reuptake inhibitors have hurt the tri-cyclic market a bit.

[Mo1]

I agree with you about the monitoring. I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. I can be very protective about "my people"--the disabled and those in chronic pain.

No biggy, some times I don't do a good job explaining my point is a post ..

I don't want folks to suffer in pain either, I just don't want them to destroy their lives also.

I wish I had they answers, but I don't .. maybe this thing with Rush will educate many so that they can be careful when dealing with these kind of drugs

[Stew Padasso]

Sure. Here is a google news feed:

http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=oxycontin

[wardaddy]

The tri-cyclics are associated with arrythmias.

What do you have?

I was born with right bundle branch block (a common anomaly) and have occasional bouts of extra atrial and even rarely some flutter. I have beta blockers around but loathe taking anything but the mildest of doses. It's been a bit more active than usual lately and I'm off to see my cardiologist Monday. I hope one day ablation therapy can really be fine tuned for folks like me.

I had an EPS about 15 years ago and they told me to just chill out and live with it unless it was bad enough to make me dizzy or faint...which it isn't thankfully....(knocking on wood and making the sign of the cross)

Oh yeah...aspirin is a must for arrythmias since they are a leading cause of increased TIAs or srokes due to the Venturi swirling action it causes in the carotid. I take one every day.

[MeekOneGOP]

[GB]

I posted this in another thread, but I work with a woman whose husband is disabled and is in severe, chronic pain. Her husband's doctor wanted to prescribe OxyContin. She said absolutely not, under no circumstances whatsoever, whether it relieved his pain or not, she simply refused to have it in the house, because she was afraid (a.) her husband would get hooked, (b.) someone would break into the house and try to steal the Oxy, possibly (c.) killing the entire family in the process.

[nothingnew]

If you can imagine having an amputation with nothing more than a shot of whiskey...

Is that you Augustus?

woodrowFMCDH

[boycott]

"It is shocking the percentage of the population that has been described anti-depressents like Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, etc."

This single comment out of this thread is the most disquieting to me. (I assume you meant to say, "prescribed", yes?)

Yes, meant "prescribed." It is alarming the number of people that take these drugs. The older man that I mentioned taking Paxil seems like he's half asleep all of the time. The young woman gained a lot of weight on it. These drugs affect people in a lot of different ways and we really don't know the long-term consequences.

Her school has taken notice of her moods and declared her "Clinically Depressed". The school district wants to get her onto a Zoloft plan so she can be "balanced".

My ex is a school teacher. She used to recommend that certain children be put on Ritalin. This woman never was considered very bright by those that knew her. She had to take the ACT four times to make a 16 so that she would be eligible for her student teaching. She never could grasp the concept of fractions. I tried to explain the concept of fractions to her using milk jugs -- gallon, half-gallon, quart, etc. Most of my friends said that it must have been another type of jugs that made me attracted to her. She thought that a quarter until noon meant 25 minutes. Would you want this woman prescribing medication to your child? I truly believe that there will one day be consequences to all the drugs that are being over prescribed.

So I get to be the big bad meany obstructionist (feel free to add in any other appropriate adjectives....) because I refuse to go along with this sham.

You're doing the right thing. However, knowing how the system works, I don't like your chances.

I have a healthy respect for the consequences of drug use - legitimate & otherwise. Indiscriminate prescription or use goes against the grain for me.

It should for all of us. Others on this thread question why I made my comments. My comments are based on the belief that the problem here is "indiscriminate prescriptions." Yes, indiscriminate prescriptions includes pain pills.

[boycott]

Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft as you said are anti-depressants. I don't believe they are addictive, nor do they make the patient high. Pain killers make you high and some can be highly addictive. My point is, prescribing large doses of anti-depresants is not equivalent to prescribing large doses of pain killers.

My point is indiscriminate prescriptions. I just used these drugs as an example. Additionally, it will be some time before we know the long-term consequences of all these anti-depressants.

[radiohead]

Dang! I wrote something similar and erased it. I'm glad to see I wasn't the only person (along w/you and Hildy apparently) who had a good time on Ludes. And yes, I knew plenty of people who took them recreationally and not one addict.

This is the problem w/drugs. I think many people do them because they're fun. They like the buzz. So what? People drink for the same effect. I don't like to drink and, if it were legal, I'd like to have a little toke now and then. But for some reason, marijuana is illegal while I could get hammered legally on alcohol and no one would care.

Meanwhile, we've got a kid who was expelled for giving his girlfriend his inhaler, we have diabetic kids who have to fight to keep their insulin with them instead of the nurse's office, and we have high school girls who have been suspended for giving each other Midol. Something is really wrong here.

Uh, just to make things clear, I don't do (illegal) drugs and haven't since the 70s.

[Sally'sConcerns]

The elavil is prescribed to help me sleep at night and also is the most prescribed anti-depressant for chronic pain management. From what I've read about it and have been told, elavil has some pain alleviating characteristics also. Most doctor's who deal exclusively in pain management will put their chronic pain patients on an anti-depressant because by it's very nature, chronic pain leads to depression.

At differing times they've also had me on serzone, deseril (sp?) and a couple of other anti-depressants as well as the elavil.

Soma's great for me since so many of the muscle relaxers out there tend to leave me with a druggy hangover the next morning. So far, I haven't had any problem with the doctors prescribing soma. (I recently moved so had to change doctors)

They also will prescribe neurontin for chronic pain and it's normally prescribed for epilepsy but has been found to have some benefit for those in chronic pain.

Oops, I just realized I was writing a book. Sorry bout that!

[boycott]

drug companies should be held accountable

I guess you were totally in favor of suing Big Tobacco, huh?

Big difference. My aunt was a diabetic and was prescribed medicine that caused her liver to fail. She died because of this liver failure. There is a major class action lawsuit involving this drug. Should her family not have any recourse from the drug company that profited from selling this drug? They were in too great of a rush to get the drug on the shelves for their profits. The drug was pulled after only 7 months on the market. Thousands have died because of this drug.

The potential consequences of tobacco are very well known. Those that use it know of the potential consequences. Again, there's a big difference.

[nmh]

"That's hardly a fair characterization. Pharma companies and docs are providing drugs that help improve people's lives, and then when those people abuse the drugs you blame the company itself. This is no different from blaming "Big Tobacco" for smokers' illnesses."

I have no idea why you dragged in tobacco companies. Atleast those companies are FORCED to be honest and state what will most likely happen when you smoke and NOT to start. "Traditional" doctors if you are lucky MAY tell you side effects on what to expect but they NEVER tell you NOT to take them or what will happen to your liver and kidneys AFTER you have taken them for a prolonged period of time. "Traditional" doctors also despise you knowing that they ONLY SUPRESS symptoms which of coursecreates more problems.