2nd – ALL READ THIS: The reps for Oxycontin were told to tell the doctors that there was no threshold for Oxycontin. In other words, if you still have pain, take more … no problem. They were WRONG. At 640MG per day your body and mind, as well as your family, starts to fall apart. You have no quality of life mentally and physically. If it wasn’t for prayer and family, I would not be here now. My doctor (once interviewed on 48 Hours) will tell you how they repeatedly lied to him. I currently am trying to use Methadone as an avenue to free myself from the grips of Perdue Pharma’s Oxycontin. I have lost many years of my life because of this drug that I will never again get the chance to enjoy. I will also never have the chance to restore the relationship I had with a girl that I had asked for marriage.

is a true life saver and I will take it until I die. Thank God for this drug. It has made my last dying days into something

good and hopeful.

Dave

However, the people who feel it should be removed from the market are unfortunately one-track minded.

This drug saved my life.

I am 25, suffering chronic pain all over.

Without this pill I crawl on the floor, using all my upper arm strength to pull my body across the floor. Screaming in agony all day long. At 25 my wife would wash me, dress me etc.

I look young healthy and fit, so when walking outside all the time people stop and ask me how I am.

I now have an 11month old baby.

My doctors, due to all the fears and bad advertising about this drug, are reluctant with prescriptions….I know this is a good thing.

However for 2 years they told me there is a drug called Oxycontin, which will change and save my life, but they don’t want to give it me.

No other med helped AT ALL.

After 2 years they finally prescribed it.

I hold my baby in pain, at about 3 months he’d become too heavy to hold without being in pain – but it’s worth it.

Without these pills I would never have held my son.

As for addiction – let me tell you all something.

From age 13-18 I was addicted to marijuana, and had experimented with many other drugs and became addicted to them (except heroin)

At age 18, I cleaned myself up,the doctors had tried, rehab had tried, no help at all. In the end I did it by myself, I just stopped seeing all my friends (I learnt in the end they weren’t friends, just drug-buddys). I ceased all connection with any of that life.

I was clean for 3 days and realised that my mind was clear, I could finally talk to people again.

I then admitted to myself I have an addictive personality….and always will. The only way to stay off these drugs, is to find a new one. I found it….it was called life.

I became addicted to being clean, being able to talk and look healthy and normal, clear headed, wake up feeling fresh. I still am.

I was clean from 18 years of age, now 25 and am completely anti-drugs.

I still have addictive personality, am addicted to things like computers, cigarettes etc. but no drugs.

At age 23 I was finally prescribed oxycontin.

By that time i had realised my childhood drug abuse was me merely self-medicating, trying to escape pain that doctors weren’t there to help me with.

REMEMBER – I had gone for 5 years, with no oxctontin or street drugs, so the oxycontin wasn’t a replacement by any means.

It’s very ironic I worked so hard and did so well to clean up, while all my friends from younger times are all dead, locked up, or begging on the streets stoned out their heads.

The doctors are refusing to increase my oxycontin. They give it me for pain, they know that the body builds up a wall against it and it doesnt’ work as well as it did, I’ve been on same dosage for a year now. They know it’s not working any more, they give it me as they know I’m in pain, but because of all the fuss about this pill, they’d rather i go home in pain, not hold my baby, let my wife look after me at the age of 25, like I’m a 90 year old, they’d rather that, than have people question their prescriptions, risk their job, even write the extra piece of paper.

Regarding addiction, I have increased oxycontin to 40mg twice a day (I’m still in pain, but only 10% if that, of what I would be without it) though it is agony that needs more meds.

To prove to myself (the doctors don’t know and wouldn’t approve), one day a week I don’t take my pills. That way I know how bad my pain has got, for real with no masking from meds.

I also once every two months, stop for a week…..just to prove I am not addicted. The week is hell for me, I am in agonising distress, but at least I know I AM IN NO WAY ADDICTED.

I have no yearning for the pill, I have NO WITHDRAWAL symptoms.

Yes, the pill causes chronic constipation, which can be helped with laxatives.

Yes, if I take too much I can feel stoned…..but if a person is taking it when they really need it, the pain is the opposite to the stoned drowsy feeling.

If they are on the right dosage, they are pain-free (as much as poss), and they are not stoned. Too much dosage, and they are zombies, too little dosage, the pain is not managed correctly.

I am so sorry for all those parents who have had probs with their kids on oxycontin, I truly am…..however please please don’t fight for the FDA to stop this pill. It is keeping me alive, more pain and I’ll shoot myself. It allows me to work, to be a father, a husband and a friend. It gives me my life.

You know what??? I AM ADDICTED TO OXYCONTIN. I am addicted to what it does for me, the 2nd chance at life it has given me. The fact my wheelchair hasn’t left its storage place in 2 years.

If you want to fight, have revenge, stop problems you may have had because of it, happening to someone else’s kid.

Fight the education system, help educate people about risks of taking prescription drugs when not needed.

If a child is addicted to it, I’m sorry. The problem is NOT THE DRUG. The problem is the addiction. If oxycontin didn’t exist, I promise you, that person would just have been addicted to something else. Trust me, I know, I’ve been there remember.

Instead people fight to remove this drug from the market, with constant disregard for those of us who owe their lives to it.

With my history, and my addictive personality, if I can control this medication. If I can remain NOT ADDICTED to it, even though it does what it does for me, then ANYONE CAN.

Because people who have lost their loved ones to this drug, or have suffered or whatever, they have made those honest ones among it’s users have a rough time.

Let me paint another picture. I can only get a prescription for 10 days due to all this negative news about the drug.

I fought to have a month prescription. Why??? I am housebound, I can’t get to the pharmacy. My wife who is single handidly raising our baby has to also get my pills. It would be unfair for her to go more than once a month.

The pills are kept in a safe in every pharmacy. Everyone in the pharmacy, INCLUDING the staff, give bad looks when my wife, or I in the past, have collected this pill.

I cleaned myself up from street drugs for one reason only, I was sick of being dirt, sick of people treating me like that.

Now I am clean for 7 years, and I get the same treatment I did when I was an addict.

All prescriptions must be hand-written. When my wife finally has the time to collect the prescription from my doctor, she takes it to the pharmacy. The doctors are so used to printing prescriptions, that they always mess up the handwritten ones. My wife has to sit with the doctor and TELL HIM how to write the prescription.

We get to the pharmacy, because he forgot the date in one of the 3 places it must be, or because he didn’t spell the number as words as well as write the number, or because he forgot to sign somewhere, or stamp somewhere. My wife then needs to make another appointment, tell him how to write again, go back to pharmacy, who finally (this can happen 3 times in one day), accepts the prescription, only to be told they don’t have pills in stock, and because it’s so controlled have to wait for special deliveries.

It is one nightmare after another after another. I am not ignorant.

I understand there must be such restrictions.It is for the good of the public and all that.

But this pill has become too stigmatised. People have begun to use this pill as a scapegoat rather than deal with the real problem. If there loved one was addicted, the problem lay psychologically in that person. If some kid gave their kid a pill, the problem is with that kid.

This drug company were not irresponsible in creating an addictive, or whatever pill.

They created something for those who need it.

Even if it is highly addictive, with a load of side-effects.

Those of us who REALLY need it don’t care about such matters – the pain is worse.

I don’t believe this pill should be given to those with ankle, shoulder injuries of whatever sort etc.

The negative stuff of the pill is not right for them, no wonder they make a fuss.

HOWEVER those of us who live in agony, who’s lives are nothing but pain, who can’t hold their own babies because of pain, for their whole lifes (not two months after an accident at work for example)……then we know the risks of what we take.

It is our problem. Please don’t make our lives worse.

I highly respect what you all do. You are speaking your minds, trying to fight the big companies, standing up for what you’re believing, rather than sitting and just talking.

HOWEVER, please try not to fight so hard you don’t realise every consequence of your actions.

Remember, if it wasn’t oxycontin it would have been another drug. It is the dealers on the streets who you should hate, not a company who was only trying to help people. It wasn’t in their best business interest to create a drug that would be abused. They lose money, they risk losing their product on the market.

We owe them our lives.

Please think about this.

For those who suffered problems with the pill, who were not taking it on the street, but were given it, then please understand we can never trust doctors. They are not saints, merely people who went to medical school instead of studying something else. They make mistakes, they don’t know everything. It is our own responsibility to read the packaging and instructions of anything we are given.

I honestly believe, and it is my final thought, that anyone who is not prepared for the side effects, the risk of addiction, the withdrawal symptoms etc. of Oxyonctin, is a person who is not in enough pain to need it.

When you get to a level of pain such as myself (and there are many much worse, remember a lot of users are Cancer patients etc.), when you get to such pain that it destroys your life, permanently, chronically, not for 2 months of work……..then you’ll do anything to get rid of the pain. I awake with pain in my legs, and ask my wife to get me a knife as I want to cut them off.Seriously. I would rather be paraylsed, I feel agony in every inch of my body and at 25 I can’t use the bathroom normally.

WHen you live like this, addiction, withdrawal, side-effects from a pill you take that actually helps, are a joke, they mean nothing as you are so so so much better than not having the pill to remove the pain.

There’s only one problem with the pill, and that is with any serious painkiller, which is that you are taking it to hide the pain, when really the doctors should be finding what’s causing the pain. You’re in less pain, they don’t have to face you and tell you they don’t know. So let’s just hand out the painkillers and go back to patients with flus, sore throats and the easy stuff.

In summary

1) Oxycontin is not a problem. The problem is with doctors either being too vigilent with the pill that those who need it don’t get it or not enough of it , or not being vigilent enough and giving it those who don’t need it.

2) Oxycontin is not the problem. The problem is with those selling it on the steets.

3) Oxycontin’s addictive effects are not the problem. The problem is with the abuser’s psychological addictive personality. Alcohol is addictive, but many of us drink it without being addicted to it. REMEMBER, guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

If you want to help :-

1) It’s not called help if when helping one person, you’re causing problems for another.

2) Don’t fight the company, they did nothing wrong.

3) Your aim is NOT to remove the pill from the market. Your aim is to remove the pill from the streets, and to make sure doctors educate the patients fully before handing them the pills, and to make sure that doctors are not TOO CAUTIOUS or not cautious enough with Oxycontin.

Please, I beg you think of me and the thousands like me before you start suing and making a fuss.

One final thing I’d like you to think of……

without my pills, I can not push the button to turn on the computer, let alone sit down at the pc, move the mouse, click the mouse button, and DEFINATELY not type a word.

Because I took my Oxycontin this morning…..I have written all of this and my fingers are only slightly in pain because of it.

I thank you so much for taking the time to read all of this.

I am sorry I went on for so long, but I really want people to understand the other side of things, at a personal level.

By the way, NO I AM NOT WORKING FOR THE OXYCONTIN COMPANY, or selling it on the street or whatever!!!!! I am simply a loving parent and husband, who owes his life to the makers of this pill.

Thank you Have a nice day.

I’ve been perscribed 80mg oxy for only about a month now. My GP has been very hesitant about this and worked me up to this dose after about 2 weeks of trialing lower doses. My need has come in the waiting time for a shoulder reconstruction, and it has turned my life from an absolute nightmare to a tolerable confusion. All the side effects mentioned above are present, but I was lucky that my GP did indicate likelyness of some of these.

I think the drug does have a time and place, but the medical profession may need to be more vigilant with the way it’s prescribed and more compationate about it’s users.