My essay On Oxycontin.... Please read!!?

Question

ARE YOU REALLY IN PAIN?

OxyContin… A miracle drug or an addict’s worst nightmare? A drug that has severe and sometimes fatal consequences when abused. Originally manufactured for terminally ill cancer patients facing the end stages of life, OxyContin has become widely over prescribed, thus creating an epidemic of abusers. So many times we go to the doctors with aches and pains and expect that the Doctor will remedy our problems in a safe manner. Often we don’t seek the truth behind medications. We don’t research the effects certain medicines can have on our bodies. When patients start to have a hard time coming off of medications such as OxyContin, only then do they think about the research, and by then, it often can be too late. Unknowingly and unintentionally patients using this drug become addicted through no fault of their own.

In 1995 a pharmaceutical company by the name of Perdue Pharma Company introduced this opioid analgesic pain medication used for chronic moderate to severe pain due to illnesses such as cancer. As originally approved, OxyContin was supposed to be for end stage cancer patients and others with escalating pain. In the beginning of OxyContin’s existence studies showed that the medications addiction rates were so great that it should only be used as a last resort pain killer. According to Stephen F. Lynch (congressman) the makers of OxyContin started marketing the drug to physicians as a “virtually” non addicting medication, making way for the explosion of prescriptions written by primary care doctors for injuries such as back aches, headaches, and broken bones. Nearly 56 percent of all OxyContin addictions have occurred in patients for which the drug was legally prescribed. (Salerian, MD)

Some patients become dependent on pain medications after a surgery or broken bones. The odds become even more escalated when OxyContin is prescribed. It is the Doctors responsibility as a caregiver to properly wean a patient from powerful pain medications and to investigate potential abuse factors. With this specific drug the patient is more likely to become addicted and begin using the medication in an abusive way, thus making coming off the drug even worse. The patient most likely then begins to seek the drug on the streets after the Doctor has stopped prescribing the medication. Street abuse can lead to crushing the pill and snorting it, to breaking it down into liquid and injecting it into the body, somewhat like heroin. When crushed and snorted, the time release is broken on the pill and the high is somewhat of a “super-power” feeling. Now the probability of addiction becomes even higher because the brain has been taken over by the rush of dopamine, creating intense feelings of pleasure. At this point, the body has become accustomed to the drug and with sudden loss of the medication the body begins to peril in withdrawal both physically and mentally.

The side effects of Oxycontin withdrawal are similar to those you would find when coming off of heroin. Some withdrawal symptoms include increased agitation, anxiety, tremor like shakes, which I would describe as Parkinson’s disease. The legs begin to cramp and ache, creating a Parkinson’s disease effect. Also noted is extremely painful stomach aches followed by vomiting. Diarrhea and increased blood pressure are also common. Some would describe these feelings as “flu like symptoms times ten”. Intense feelings of hopelessness may accompany all of the other symptoms mentioned above. Life threatening symptoms include respiratory depression in which breathing in an individual decreases or ceases all together. It may also lead to Hypotension, which is low blood pressure or the sudden drop of blood pressure, causing the body to go into shock, and slowing the heart rate until oxygen is no longer circulating to the heart.

With so many consequences to the effect this drug can have in your life, don’t you think it would be wise to do research on any prescription your doctor may give you? In case you didn’t know, many doctors are given lofty incentives to prescribe a certain drug for the manufacturer. Some manufactures represent their products in misleading manners that almost trick doctors into thinking that the drug their prescribing is safe; when studies would show that they are not. In fact, several letters were sent to the makers of OxyContin on its misleading advertisements and the omittance of potential abuse among consumers. Since we are all human, including our doctors, it is safe to say that you need to do your research on prescriptions before you start taking them, it could mean saving your life and in some cases your family.

Written by S.L. Iddi Massillon OH

Answer 1

this is a very good essay and it caught my eye since I had a nephew badly addicted to it especially bad for the last three years and am addict for 10 and just this week got some good news.  Perhaps you would like to add this info on this medical drug at the end of you essay..It offers true hope to the oxycontin street addict..here is the true story

My nephew was addicted to Oxycontin and some other drugs and he was an addict ten years and because of it, he lost many jobs, apartments, a new wife, he was homeless many times, lied to everyone, stole much from the family, even turned to crime, and burned all his bridges..in short, he utterly destroyed his life. No-one wanted to be around him and let him in their houses cause he stole so mcuh stuff and lied so much..he made my mom who died this year living h**l in the last years of her life.

I have not heard about him lately as he stopped hanging around my mom's house after my mom died...and I mentioned something about it to his mom, my sister, and the she told me he was clean since December ..when I asked how she said there was a relatively new drug called suboxone. she heard of it from someone who had a friend addicted to heroin who as able to get off with this drug.

Answer 2

Very informative, I suck at proofreading, so I won't attempt to judge you at that, but its well written I think that it flows well.

Answer 3

Very informative.

You have made a good point; For a while I was in extreme pain from a knee reconstruction and my surgeon was readily prescribing Oxycodone (oxycontin) for pain relief. I was very concerned about the symptoms so i called my parents (both are MD's) and asked for some advice, we ended up advising my surgeon to take me off the Oxycodone gradually, and switch to a lower grade painkiller, Tramadol.

I was on Oxycontin for a knee reconstruction. Here are some other withdrawal  symptoms that you can experience while on the medication:

- Constipation

- uncontrolled shivering

- the pain in my knee was indescribable.

- Sensation of being extremely cold.

- Hallucinations (I saw stars and pink elephants, lol)

When i was taking it, it would last 2-3 hours. After this time the pain would kick in so I'd have to have another top-up dose.

I was on 15 mg every two hours.

I hope that helped.

Good Luck.

CJ

Answer 4

For a non-physician, you've done a fine job. I do think you came down a bit hard on Purdue and gave Mr. Lynch a bit of a pass. You also have only just scratched the surface of the problem of chronic, unremitting, but non-malignant pain.

If you don't know much about addiction medicine, Purdue's sales pitch could appear to minimize the risk of addiction. But a physician who's contemplating its use should know that there's a vast difference among tolerance, dependency, and addiction. Tolerance will predictably occur over time. Dependency is not usual but common. Addiction is not.

Healthy people also have a real tendency to underestimate the number of people who have chronic pain that interferes significantly with their life. It's a substantial subset of our population. If you take an extremely conservative number for argument's sake, let's say there are ten million people with such pain. And let's take a very liberal number, say one in ten thousand, who become addicted. That produces a thousand addicts, not counting the peripheral addicts who abuse it without the legal prescription (the roughly 9500 idiots you alluded to, who get what they asked for). Plenty for lawsuits or making political hay, but compared to the number of people helped, it's truly trivial. Who wouldn't take the 1:10,000 risk?