Replies

I don't know the origin or nature of Rush Limbaughs narcotic addiction.

The point is, you should not be afraid of oxycontin...if used properly, the patient is *less* likely to become an abuser than if the patient had to rely on non-timed-release narcotic formulations.

Chances are, if Rush actuall had pain and became addicted to a prescribed painkiller, it predates the availability of Oxycontin, and resulted from use of conventional intermittent high doses of narcotic. In order to get any kind of adequate pain relief for any period of time with regular formulations, the patient has to go through having too much and then not enough.

In other words, he had to use medications that could only give relief in "spikes"...which results in unnatural euphoria... which can lead to addiction and rapid development of tolerance.

A drug like oxycontin is useful to a euphoria-seeking addict when they take the deliberate step of foiling the timed release of painkiller by crushing the pill.

He was probably already addicted to the euphoria before he ever touched an oxycontin pill.

As far as chronic pain patients being "addicts", that's really a misnomer. They are addicts like a diabetic is addicted to insulin. They need narcotics to live without pain interfering with normal function. With a formulation like Oxycontin, they can have steady relief from pain without the deleterious effects "spikes" in blood levels can cause or lead to.
They are less likely to rapidly develop tolerance, or to become abusers, needing more and more seeking euphoria. They are also less likely to have some of the troublesome side effects that come from intermittent dosing.

The point is CRUSHING that pill is a willful act meant to destroy the timed release of medicine, by druggies in search of a feeling of euphoria.

This abuse should not keep a patient from having access to a safer, more effective, and LESS ADDICTIVE formulation like Oxycontin.

Regarding the proper vs. improper use of prescription narcotics such as Oxycontin, you are, I think, making the same point that a doctor on TV was making about this. He did not only distinguish btw the proper use of the timed-release medicine, but also spoke of the problems that occur when a patient isn't being prescribed quite the right dosage to give enough relief from the pain.

I was talking to a woman who works with a pharmacist, one time recently. She made a point about Xanax. She said that with a certain dosage of that drug, the patients were told to take the medicine every 6 hours. But she said that the effect of the medicine would wear off after about 3 hours. So, to her, it didn't make sense. I think the bottom line is, there is still no perfect therapy, and furthermore, a doctor probably has to really study the dosage and the patient's reported reactions, in order to get it just right.

Someone mentioned the other day that they didn't recall ever hearing that Rush had suffered any particular back injury. I don't recall hearing it, either. But a long time ago, in a Barnes & Noble, I came across the hated "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" in a bin of bargain books. Yes, seriously, it was in a bargain bin. It was that book's title which made me have a real contempt for Al Franken, whose Saturday Night Live antics had formerly been fairly amusing to me.

I leafed through the book a little. I realized, on doing so, that it was a REAL hit piece on Rush. I mean, this guy went really LOW in his attack. He discussed private medical conditions--how he found out about them, I don't know. One thing that was mentioned was a cyst of some sort. Not being a medical person, I didn't understand fully what it meant, but it had something to do with Limbaugh's spine. I got the impression that it was something he'd either been born with, or which he'd had since childhood. The real kicker was the way Franken then called the condition "disgusting".

IT JUST DOESN'T GET ANY LOWER THAN THAT!!!

So when you say he may have gotten an addiction which predates Oxycontin, that sounds right. Because I believe Oxycontin is relatively new. But it appears that Rush has been suffering with this condition, whatever it is, for most of his life.

There are many more people who have lived law-abiding lives who have fallen victim to addiction, for a variety of reasons--mostly, I think, b/c of things like patient error, or doctor error, or unrelenting pain, or who knows what. It just goes to show us that a person who was surely NOT just being self-destructive, and surely NOT just uncaringly seeking the "high", can fall victim to something like addiction. There is no point in blaming the drug, an inanimate object.

However, after having met many addicts of various substances, and after having seen this, I really think that if I were ever cursed with chronic, unrelenting pain, I'd be trying like all get out to find something, anything, other than medication, to help me deal with it. You need to understand that this is coming from a person who is even suspicious of Ritalin and related medications. I am suspicious of Accutane. I am suspicious of all sorts of medications. I just want to avoid medication, if at all possible. But I realize that sometimes it's not possible.