The Silence of Our Friends

cabell:

liquornspice:

soofriends:

liquornspice:

newshour:

Painkillers now cause more deaths in America than cocaine and heroin combined.

Painkiller ‘Epidemic’ Deepens in U.S.

And I bet a good chunk of that is from acetaminophen overdose. Tylenol is toxic as fuck.  The margin between “oh, I am feeling slight pain relief!” and “hey, my liver’s failing!” is really REALLY small.  The news likes to spin painkiller overdose as people just chasing a high when a HUUUUUGE number of folks are just trying to, ya know, relieve pain when the Tylenol part of Tylenon+Codeine ends up killing them.

I’m wondering why they haven’t removed Tylenol from meds it’s used in because it is so toxic. Although, my doctor told me that part of the point of putting it in is because it’s toxic to keep people from taking more meds than they are supposed to, but how many people are given prescriptions and told, “If you take more than you are prescribed you’re setting yourself up for liver failure.”??? I was told AFTER I HAD ALREADY BEEN TAKING VICODIN FOR NEARLY 10 YEARS! Gee thanks for warning me doctor(s). I have chronic pain and at one point it was badly managed, so I started taking more and more vicodin just to function. I was up to 8 pills per day and that’s when my doctor told me about how toxic the Tylenol is.

Emphasis mine.

Yes, this exactly. I was prescribed a weak-as-fuck pain med for cramps because NSAIDs were ruining my stomach. Darvocet, I think it was.. It did absolutely nothing and I was in agony. I googled the drug to see how much I could take w/o dying and I found out it was already banned outside the US because of low-efficacy and high toxicity from the Tylenol.  And that’s when I found out that they PUT tylenol in drugs to keep people from taking higher doses than necessary of painkillers.  Basically the worst idea in the history of ever because nowhere in life are we drilled about the dangers of Tylenol. They have commercials about pot ruining your life, but no one tells people, “Hey, slightly too much of the regular daily dosage of Tylenol can kill you. Normal dosages can kill you too if your liver’s already weak or you just have bad luck!”  Nobody mentions that TYLENOL is THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF ACUTE LIVER FAILURE in the US. 

Nope. They just write shit, moralizing articles about “prescription drug use” that place the blame on individuals and their doctors. Never the pharmaceutical companies or our shitty health care system.

Church.

Tylenol/acetaminophen doesn’t do shit for me in terms of pain management, and I don’t know many people for whom it is effective.  Whenever I see commercials trumpeting how it “doesn’t interact with other drugs,” I think, Yeah, and neither does CHALK, because it is INERT.  And meanwhile, it’s added to really low-risk narcotics like hydrocodone (Vicodin) basically because we want to punish drug addicts, or people we think are drug addicts, despite, as noted above, few people being educated about the risks of acetaminophen and actual drug addicts not being well-known for their risk projection skills anyway.

And the thing is, I have a standing script for hydrocodone because I cannot take NSAIDs, as a person on a lifetime prescription for anticoagulants.  I had that standing script for almost five years before ANY doctor mentioned to me that it was possible to get a lower acetaminophen dose version of the same drug, and that’s especially shocking to me because my GP is actually a very good doctor.  It was an obstetrician, who deals with low-dose narcotics a lot since NSAIDs aren’t safe for pregnancy either, who made the switch for me.  And I still have to request specifically that I be given the lower acetaminophen version when I get a new script, because it doesn’t register for most doctors as something to worry about.

It’s not a huge difference—325mg acetaminophen with 5mg of hydrocodone instead of 500mg, but obviously it would add up over the course of a lifetime.  Of course, the lower acetaminophen dosage pill is also significantly more expensive than the regular one.  With my insurance, I paid like $3 for a 20-pill script of Vicodin; I have to pay the full $10 generic co-pay for the lower acetaminophen version.  Again, a difference that adds up, and that would be much, much worse for someone without prescription drug coverage.

“actual drug addicts not being well-known for their risk projection skills anyway.” This could be true of those of us dependent on these meds too. There were days when my choice was to stay in bed curled up crying and screaming from pain or double/triple my dosage to get some relief. I think even if I had known the danger I still would have taken the extras, because at that point all I could think was to get away from the pain in any way possible, and death would be an option. It shouldn’t come to that, and those of us with medical issues shouldn’t have to worry about additional medical issues from our prescriptions, especially totally unnecessary ones, like liver damage from a useless additive!

“because it doesn’t register for most doctors as something to worry about.” This is the thing I’m getting at. Few of us think of Tylenol as dangerous, as you said, even a lot of doctors don’t know, and so if they aren’t worried we think, why should we be worried?

By the way, I was reading somewhere one of the most dangerous combinations with Tylenol is alcohol. I’m surprised I’m alive. How many don’t know this, and take Tylenol for a hangover like I used to? That’s killed a lot of people.