drteknikal's blog

Ouch. I cut my finger with a power saw and had to go to the emergency room. I missed two weeks work. I'd taken the first week off to do home improvements, and cut my finger two hours in.

For two weeks, my life was an endless series of repeating 4-hour cycles. Feel pain, take pill, wait 30 minutes, stare into space for 60-90 minutes, realize I've been staring into space for 60-90 minutes, start to feel pain, wait in pain until I can take more pills, then repeat.

For the first two days I was on percosets and life wasn't so bad. Two percosets knock me out and I was able to get some sleep. After that, they had me on vicodin. I hate vicodin. It upsets my stomach after I take it, it doesn't do much for my pain, and I can't get any sleep. So I call and complain, asking for more percosets. Their solution? More vicodin, at twice the dose. Unfortunately, that's no improvement -- given the limits, if I take any more than I had been, I'll have one or more 4-hour cycles where I can't take any. I start cutting the pills in half and taking them on a 2-hour cycle, trying to overlap doses to avoid the stomach upset, and get around the fact that the vicodin wears off an hour before I can take next dose on a 4-hour cycle.

So when I go back to get the stitches out, I again complain about the vicodin. So they put me on oxycontin instead. Great, now I'm on Rush Limbaugh drugs. Oxycontin doesn't just upset my stomach, it makes me vomit after taking it. If I can't keep it down, I have to wait twelve hours before I can take more. I've had to swallow a load of bile while driving to work more than once. I've puked on myself in the shower, and decoated my office at work. Worse, oxycontin is no more effective than the Vicodin was, but at least it's on a 12-hour dose so I can try to sleep. I have enough oxycontin for another couple of days, then hopefully I can get by on naproxen. I don't think I'll miss the oxycontin.

Every one of these pain killers has severe alcohol interaction warnings. I haven't had a drink in over two weeks. I'm going to a concert tonight, so I think I'm going to find out if alcohol can substitute for oxycontin. Given that I'm going to see Chuck Brown and George Clinton on Friday, and I'll be out of oxycontin by then, I hope so.