Gonna start a new career ...

[Pixelated]

So I am off work for at least two weeks, and possibly up to 4, after some minor surgery -- by which I mean surgery at 11 a.m., back home by about 4:30 p.m., and rabidly stuffing myself with ordered-in Chinese food by 6 p.m. (you know those cartoons you see where the person appears to be eating with six hands? That was me.)

And of course when they send you home, they send you home with prescriptions for painkillers. As they did me.

Ibuprofen. Okay, that's understandable.

And ... morphine?
MORPHINE?? Are you fucking KIDDING me?!?

I could probably finance four months off work if I filled both those and tried selling the stuff on the street.

For the record, I didn't bother getting the morphine 'scrip filled; I just told the pharmacy to hold it and if I needed it, I would fill it. Which I won't. My surgery was Wednesday (July 26) and I haven't even broken into the ibuprofen yet, and likely won't. (And no, I'm not a masochist who's sitting here gritting my teeth and "powering through the pain." The "pain" is about equal to a moderate bruise.)
On the other hand ... now I get to dive into all those Star Trek books I bought.

[Arcus]

You could have happen what happened to me.

A little back story: I'm one of those 'lucky' people that Oxycodone has no effect on. Because of this I have to ask that they prescribe something other than that when I need something that powerful for pain.... onto what happened:

I had to have a tooth pulled and was in a lot of pain. My normal dentist was on vacation and another dentist in the office did the work. She gave me a prescription for Oxycontin. When I noticed it, I asked the assistant if the dentist could come back and prescribe something different and explained why. She just gave me a funny look and walked out without saying anything. A few minutes later the dentist came back and in a very harsh tone told she wasn't going to prescribe a stronger dose and she was thinking of marking my file as a drug seeker. She was surprised when I got mad and said I didn't want a stronger dose or even a prescription for Oxy at all. If all she is going to prescribe is oxy, I'm going to rip it up now and just use over the counter pain relievers. She asked why I would do that when her assistant said I asked for a stronger dose. Still mad, I said that her assistant is stupid or needs her hearing checked because I asked to talk to the dentist about getting Anything other than Oxy (yeah I was a jerk here, but I was in pain and just got accused of being a druggie.) The dentist said she would be right back and after a few minutes came back holding my file followed by a very embarrassed assistant. Turns out that my normal dentist had in bold letters in my file "Patient has a resistance to Oxycodone and other drugs in this class of pain killers" and had a list of other pain relievers that he knew worked for me. They both apologized for not reading the notes in my file and how they treated me because of it.

[EricKei]

A little back story: I'm one of those 'lucky' people that Oxycodone has no effect on.

I found out that Oxy has little to no effect on me when I had a tooth pulled several months back, tho I doubt it's on my file.

What's more problematic and relevant for me is that I'm very resistant/borderline immune to Tylenol (Paracetamol to our friends across the Pond) because I used it often as a teen to help with headaches, to the point where it took two 1000mg (extra strength) tablets to get any real relief at all. I've avoided it almost entirely in the many years since then. The reason that it's important is that I take blood pressure pills – NSAID painkillers are known to interfere with those meds, and Tylenol is one of the few, if only, non-NSAIDs readily available OTC. Thus, I only take painkillers when it's bad enough that I either cannot sleep nor function normally without them.

[Arcus]

If you are Oxy resistant like me, I'm not surprised Tylenol doesn't work for you. They are in the same class of pain killers when it comes to resistance. Or that is what my doctor told me and he told me not to use them for pain.

[EricKei]

I was unaware of that. TIL. Thanks!