Why did my husbands drug screen not show his pain medication?

Question

My husband is on Pain management for his back problems. He works hard (60 ++ hours a week), so he needs relief from the pain. He is prescribed Percocet and MsContin. However, he did not take any of his MsContin all last month because it tends to make him very sleepy. We are currently in the process of packing and house hunting so he needed to be awake to help. He has all the medicine to prove he just simply did not take them.

Anyways, he went to the doctors and they took a urine test to send to the lab. It came back Negative for his medication. I understand about the MsContin, but he has been taking his Percocet. Therefore, I do not understand why its not showing up.

I will say that about 2 weeks ago he had to go to the Emergency Room and had a Kidney Stone. He has been drinking a lot of water since. He drinks at least 7 to 8 - 20 oz bottled waters daily.

Someone said this could have been the reason, but it wasn't like his Urine looked like water. It had yellow color to it.

I am just wondering how this happened because there is a good chance he can get discharged from his doctor when he is in fact taking his medication. I am just worried about him because I do not want to see him in pain. He works entirely too hard.

He did not take any percocet the morning he took the test also. His last percocet was the night before the test.

Can anyone help me to understand how his urine showed no evidence of the Percocet?

Answer 1

This happened to me last year and I have been on Percocet for almost two years.  Your husband reached tolerance.  That means that his body is used to the Percocet levels.  Sometimes doctors check urine to see if you are actually taking the drug or selling it or something.  If the doctor has a problem with the negative then demand a blood test.  The Percocet will show up in the blood test.  The urine test may have been to test kidney function.

Answer 2

JUst take another test, simple as that and don't have him drink anything. Yea the water can open his bladder up like a flowing stream.

Answer 3

Two possible reasons there was no indication of percoset in the urine test. The first is that they may not have done a specific test for it because they were in fact looking for something else. The other possibility is that with all of the water he is drinking and the relatively small dose he takes, there was none to show up. The half life of percoset is only about 4 hours, so it is quite possible that there was insufficient residue to be detected.