Where I live, we have no shortage of Opana ER. However, the 10mg IR's can be a pain to find at times. As far as asking your Dr what to replace it with, depends because there's nothing RX higher than pandas. You could possibly ask for an increase on IR if you get them or ask for oxycodone as breakthrough.
Kittycat5, I must say I'm intreagued as well. Funny, but I have the global brand as well. According to a/the Opana ER website, their test showed that a name brand Opana ER pill, the one with the safety mechanism in it was a little stronger and slightly smoother than a generic Oxyorphone pill, the kind with the original formula and of equal strength. I'm not sure I believe it, but can see the name brand pills being ringers.
I'm going slightly off here but I have a theory. I think that name brand pills may in some cases work better then their generic counterparts because of the solubility levels of the binders and fillers in a name brand pill versus a generic pill. Why couldn't certain binders or fillers increase or decrease certain aspects of a medications bioavailability? I will have to do a little research into a few of the fillers. Theoretically, could this be a possibility?
Might be that your area is closely associated with Impax Global. Could you say in general terms what part of the country we are talking about.
Most pharmacies will keep a specific amount on hand for customers who have monthly refills and have used them for awhile. They'll tell you they don't have any when truthfully, they have enough to fill several scripts.
Even though my pharmacy tells me to always call ahead of time and tells me they can't save meds for any particular prescription, I believe I'm the only one they have on my med and so far, they always seem to get in one bottle each month to fill my request. God Bless them!
A bit off topic, but as some one who broke their back this scares me. It was so hard in Maryland to get just Oxy 15's. I went from pharmacy to pharmacy with a real script for 45 pills. One pharmacy I had to been going to for three years all of a started treating me like a criminal and lying about my insurance because I came in with a script FOUR days before my second refill EVER! They wouldn't just tell me that there was a database and it was FOUR day too soon. So I thanked them for finding what they called "red flags" took back my script and "walked " out with the assistance of a walker and a back brace, like most people do who are abusing/selling this little dosage. I fear having to be on these drugs for a long time, but because of the surgery I'm partially crippled for life.
Is this a DEA thing or just pharmacy co. greed? I used to live in NewHampshire and knew of alot of people that that switched to heroin after the Government made the Oxys impossible to get. Regular people who are now criminals or dead because of OD'ing.
That's awesome! When I 1st started getting them, they were rarely prescribed in my area. I caught H just trying to fid the 5mg opanas. You have to meet a certain criteria for oxymorphone in my state. I don't have any issues with getting them filled now.
I believe the OP asked what could replace them? I don't forsee any pill replacing them in "my" area because where I live you're either on oxycodone 5mg to 30mg, dilaudid 2mg to 8mg or oxymorphone 10mg to 40mg.
Well what about patenting extended release mechanism instead of drug?
Wouldn't that yield longer exclusive rights?
And after that you just use big money to lobby FDA to drop out same drugs with other ER mechanisms as they aren't safe or they are sub-par effective and lobby doctors to not prescribe IR releases because of their abuse potential.
P.S. If you Big Pharmas aren't doing that yet then let your head hunters contact me through PM so they can employ me.
This is common practice in the world of big pharma, but slimmy even for their standards.
Hi kitty, I hope u had happy holidays!Not to be missed in all of this is the 1000 pound Gorilla sitting over there in the corner of the room. And it is; the Oral method of administration (MOA), is very important in this discussion. Opana has an approximate oral bio-availability of about 10%. Honestly a 20mg Opana taken orally, (regardless of formula for the most part), is not much stronger, if at all, then a small/moderate amount of hydrocodone taken orally.
The Bio-Availability of Opana sky rockets to above 70% with just about any other MOA you can think of. This is a vast chasm, which makes Opana stonger than high purity heroin when used in ways other than oral administration. It is almost unreal, and I suspect that many pain management patients have recognized this and do what they must to handle their pain. Some of you might remember when Opana changed to the plastic-like formula, there was mass withdrawal happening all over the country. People wound up chewing multiple plastic pills just to stave the terrors of opiate withdrawal. Then they would obviously run out, and find themselves in an even worse spot. Sure, we can say they put themselves into that position, but I suspect that the majority of those people, other than misusing their meds, were far from criminals. Some wound up in criminal activity because they were drawn to look for something that could match the tolerance they built with snorting or injecting Opana.
Again, lets be honest, Opana would not even be a story or a well known pain killer if the bio-availability were 10% no matter what the MOA was. The fact is, it is practically unmatchable among pill-based opiates regarding strength when insulflating, plugging, or shooting. One of the popular aspects of this drug was indeed it did not even need to be injected to get what most narcotic users, legit or otherwise, were seeking. Similar to the rise of modern Heroin. The older (IDK, say pre-90s) Heroin kept many people away from the drug because it had to be injected. A lot of kids experimenting with drugs were just not willing to take that next step to sticking a metal point into their veins. Newer Heroin could be snorted, drew a lot of new fans and then many of those folks wound up shooting anyway because they were already chasing the opiate high or in the case of people with pain, the relief.
I also seem to remember, be it real or perceived, a collective "horray!" among opiate users when the generic companies were allowed to start making the non-plastic formula. The whole thing is a complex quagmire of variables. I am thinking of writing a book (not kidding) as I see the story of Opana has enough tentacles to make for a highly interesting tale of abuse, money, pain, deceit, corporate immorality, and other "sexy" things that have impacted peoples lives. The impact can only be described as mostly negative. The thing is, I don't think it had to be that way. Early management of those who reintroduced this drug could have at least changed some things for the better. Overall, I think that the mismanagement is a result of people caring more about money than other people. A common theme, yes. But the issues have run very deep for many.
After 2 years of trying to find pain relief, Opana ER 30 mg every 12 hours and Opana IR 10 mg 4x daily worked well. I was taking less Opana IR with increase from 15 mg Opana ER to 30 mg. Got in trouble with the Dr after 1 time use of Meth ( d.u.m.b Dum!) When I mentioned Opana to a new Dr (not Chronic Pain Mgmt) they gave nothing, then trammadol (a dirty opiate for me). I have a HOST of chronic pain issues. See new pain Dr on Thursday (I've been without pain Mgmt since Sept 5th) & desperate for pain relief. I had no idea Opana was stronger than Heroin (which I learned on this thread). I'm a long term opiate user & very opioid tolerant. Know all the tricks to get an extra 'boost'...etc. 3 people actually suggested Heroin for pain if Dr's won't prescribe me pain meds. Even as a lover of glorious opiates, Heroin was a NO until I learned Opana is stronger than Heroin! The Dr's may drive me to it as my pain is ruining my quality of life.
I'm sick of the DEA & the pharmaceutical companies making chronic pain a game to them & scaring Dr's from prescribing pain relief.
Just my 2¢. I'm a newbie so I hope I didn't break any rules. TY...