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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

New Member with Question about Oxycontin vs Oxycodone. So confused! ?

P

Pippa

Greenlighter
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Messages
7
Hi! :? So confused and need answers. We know someone that has been taking Oxycontin 20mg controlled release for a year for severe back pain. This person I know, went to the pharmacy to get the RX filled yesterday and the pharmacy filled it for Oxycodone 20mg Immediate Release? This person usually takes 3 of the Oxycontin 20mg Controlled Release everyday. So- the question is..Should this person I know call to have it "fixed" or did this person get a better pain relief product? What are the pro's and con's of this happening? Did this person get the good or bad end of the deal? What are the benifits if any of having the new RX that they filled compared to the previous RX? Basically, did this person get "lucky" or get "unlucky" by this happening? It was a mistake made by the pharmacy.
 
Well, the pharmacy messed up for sure. OxyContin is oxycodone in an extended-release formulation. Oxycodone instant release is, well, oxycodone in an instant-release formulation. It is the same active drug (oxycodone) but NOT the same prescription.

It is hard to say. But IR (instant release oxycodone) isn't going to provide around the clock pain relief that you're used to with ER/XR (extended release) oxycodone (OxyContin). Getting "lucky" is a matter of personal perferance. Some drug users prefer instant-release oxycodone over the extended release versions for various reasons. But, we're a harm reduction forum, so we're here to help you use your drugs safely, not here to tell you how to get high off a mistake made by the pharmacy. If you're a pain patient, IR oxycodone is considerably different than XR/ER oxycodone.

Also, is the person you're talking about actually you? Because we know it is you ;) There's no need to use things like "my friend" or "somebody I know" on this forum - in fact, it is against the forum rules.

I'm going to move this over to Basic Drug Discussion since its a simple dosing question.

NMI --> BDD
 
Ha! Actually, it really isn't me. :) But, Thank you for your response and information. Since I am new, I didn't realize I couldn't ask "for" someone...my husband. ( who is disabled). And getting "high" is not the question..having a "better pain relief product" was my quote actually. Getting "Lucky" is referring to better pain reduction as that would be a blessing for him to have the opportunity to try something different without having to commit to it long term. Thank You again and sorry to break any rules or offend you or anyone else.
Pippa
 
No, you certainly can ask for somebody...it's just that, 99.99% of the time somebody posts that they "know somebody" - they are actually posting about themselves. Don't worry, you haven't offended anybody at all :)

In regards to pain reduction, it is really hard to tell. Everybody is different. Think about it this way, oxycodone IR generally lasts 3-6 hours, and oxycodone XR generally lasts anywhere from 8-12 hours. So take those numbers and equate them with pain relief. Your husband may get better pain relief from oxycodone IR (some people do, they just have to dose the oxycodone IR multiple times per day).

Your husband could certainly try out his normal OxyContin dosage with the IRs he got (don't increase the dosage...) and see how things work. If he gets better pain relief from the IRs, he should consider himself lucky and contact his doctor about changing his prescription to the IRs. If not, its probably best to contact his doctor (or have him contact his doctor) and the doctor know about the pharmacy mix-up so your husband can get the pain relief he needs.

I would like to welcome you (and your husband) to the Bluelight community. We have a large amount of chronic pain patients on the boards here. I recommend reading through, and having your husband read through, the Pain Management Megathread over in our Other Drugs Forum. It is loaded with tons and tons of information that I'm sure will be helpful to y'all.

And again, welcome to Bluelight :)
 
Hi Pip,

I may be able to add some insight. My experience is I am currently 30 day clean from OC abuse, I am not doctor. A few years back, maybe 2, OC switched their formula so an OC pill could not be crushed to circumvent the time release. When it was OC, a person could crush a pill and get instant release oxy and feel high. Now they are OP's and CANNOT be crushed effectivly to get that desired effect. So, what this MAY mean is two fold. This person may be taking a pill and it is not releasing the oxy fast enough therefore not reliving pain fast enough requiring an IR pill. The advantage to this is any pain is instantly gone. The other issue is the change was made because this person is trying to achieve a high they were not getting from the time release. This will surely result in abuse and a gradual increase in dosage. So lucky or unlucky depends on if this person is taking still taking the 3 pills and maintaining a quality of life(good relations, job, money, social outlet). Only youk now this person so the answer lies in if it was done for abuse or for legit pain. If you are close, married to this person, the first place is to have a discussion about why they did it. It was/is very commn for a patient to tell the Doctor the new formula isnt working and the Dr. will change it, no questions. The second place is to look into finances, bank statements, CC etc and see if there is strange spending. This will drect you to abuse. If this person tells you they are not abusing, your insticts will tell you to beleive or otherwise, depending on the closeness of the relationship. if your married, you know deep down if there is a gap in your relationship. a bit harder if ita friend. either way, abuse is rampet so since you are here concerned, you are not out of line looking into this. My best advice is be open and prepared if abuse if the problem. An addict will lie in fear that you will leave. dont give that option. its only abuse, it can be fixed. the relationship will ultimatley die if abuse so look into it. I hope this will give you a better line into the effects of pills and how and why a person MAY make this change. not trying to scare you. a decent OC tolerance is above 100mgs a day, this would kill a non user if taken all at once so know that 3 20's is not a huge amount for a tolerance but on its way. hopefully, this person made the change for Pain and is maintaining the 3 a day. another red flag is if scripts run out early or this person has really bad days, 1-5 days before refill. they are sick most likely. the signs and reason are always there, just have to open your eyes, communicate and you will understand what is happening.

Spelling errors are terrible. 30 days clean and my focus is shot. part of cleaning up

good luck
 
Hi CT38, If I understood Pippa's post correctly, it was that her husband was given the wrong pills from the pharmacy by mistake, not that he was misusing his pills and/or the doctor deliberately changed his medication. There is no reason to assume her husband is misusing his medication or start investigating him :) She was just trying to find out what the difference between the 2 formulations was so that they could decide whether he should keep the pills or go back and explain that they gave him the wrong ones.
 
I would tell the dr right away. I would do this to show good faith. Maybe in a couple of days?? If it's not working out, if you see the prescription is not going to last that long, let the dr know about the error. This is really a huge error and it most likely will be caught by the pharmacy. Errors like this happen all the time but usually not with opiates. They may call you. They may not. They may try to hide it. If someone does call be honest and say I didn't know the difference because that is the truth.

I hope all works out and your husband pain is relieved.

I am a nurse and know that feeling when you have made a error. I was wrote up one time for pulling the wrong drug Vicodin 5/325mg from the wrong bottle. It was the right drug wrong bottle and with the drug count and everything it showed I was off on two bottles. One more in a bottle and one less in a bottle. Dumb.
 
If you were given the same amount of pills you normally get with ERs but in IR form wouldnt you run out faster than your refill?

Considering youd be taking them more often?

Id call regardless
 
I would advise giving the pharmacy a call and just asking them if they rx was changed or what the deal is. Their error is going to show up on their records eventually no matter the case, and when being written for a schedule II medication I think honesty is going to look the best in everyone's eyes.

I also would suspect that the extended release your husband is normally getting would work much better in the long term for his chronic pain.

Hope everything works out well for you guys and welcome to bL.
 
shimazu said:
If you were given the same amount of pills you normally get with ERs but in IR form wouldnt you run out faster than your refill?

Considering youd be taking them more often?

Id call regardless
Click to expand...
Shimazu- That is exactly what I was wondering about! How can 3 20mg Extended Release pills be replaced with 3 Quick release pills without running out? The pain may be gone faster but only goes away for 3-4 hours where as the Extended Release lasts about 7-8 hours before needing another to control the pain? That is basically in a nutshell, what I am wondering? It seems like you would need 5-6 instead of 3? So- it is confusing to me as to what the conversion would be? The oxycodone Immediate release does work better for him, but does not last long enough. So, that's the exact problem/question. What would be the answer to having the pain under control so well for 3-4 hours with the Fast release, but needing to take more compared to the long acting oxycontin that doesn't work as well? And he doesn not get "high" because of his tolorance. I know that for a fact. I can tell when he is "loopy" and when he is just feeling better from the medication easing the pain. Thanks so mcuh for any input now that my question is more clear- thanks to you shimazu! :)
 
well Ive never had a legit script or anything so I really cant tell you if it is or is not going to be an issue but anything involving Scheduled Drugs id air on the side of caution, and immediately let the Pharmacy know that they fudged up.
 
Oxycodone lasts longer than just 3-4 hours (it's half-life is that amount of time) so I don't see why 3 pills wouldn't cover someone for a full day. I think that in the OPs case (original poster, not OP OxyContin) their husband would prefer adequate pain relief for almost all of the day compared to inadequate pain relief for the whole day. Also, just because someone needs pain meds doesn't mean that they experience pain 24/7, so it's very possible that the instant release formulation covers enough time in which they experience pain.
 
Or he could just take smaller doses and take it more frequently, like if he normally takes 20mg timed-release 3x per day, he could take 10mg regular-release 6x per day. But I'm curious if this was just a one-time mix-up by the pharmacy why are you still asking more than a month later? :?
 
Swimmingdancer said:
Or he could just take smaller doses and take it more frequently, like if he normally takes 20mg timed-release 3x per day, he could take 10mg regular-release 6x per day. But I'm curious if this was just a one-time mix-up by the pharmacy why are you still asking more than a month later? :?
Click to expand...


Swimmingdancer- yes, this was a one time mistake and he really couldn't do much about it as it was a "vacation overide" We were leaving for Germany the next morning (and just got back 2 days ago) and had to have the RX filled early to cover him the amount of time we would be gone. He and I had other basic Rx's that needed to be filled and the only place he/we could find that had all of the medications we needed to have them filled all at one place to avoid getting approval from the insurance company each time ,to do the over ride, was a chain pharmacy we had only used a few times, as we usually use a smaller, very professional and respected family owned local pharmacy. But they didn't have enough of all of the medications needed and said it would be a few days to be there if they ordered them. It wasn't until right before we left that we actually had all (5 total) of the Prescriptions from all of our Doctors gathered (which was very time consuming to go to each Dr. to drop off the documents supporting our trip out of the country, then wait for a call back to come pick them up. We asked for written RX's so we could choose the pharmacy according to availability of the medications and amounts we needed)
I am also curious as to why you would think my question should have a time limit? What would that have to do with my question concerning the conversion of the 2 medications, the quality of pain relief these 2 medications provide when compared to one another and if anyone had knowledge of the differences he should expect? What prompted your curiousity to ask the question?
 
^I just didn't understand why you would still need to know over a month later as I assumed his last fill with the wrong form of oxycodone would have likely been used up by now, and if not I assumed that he would have by now figured out what works for him to make the most of the IR formulation if he has been taking them every day for the past month. You asked for more input so I was wondering exactly what input you still need so we could better answer your question.

Without more info my best advice would be to take smaller doses and take it more frequently, like if he normally takes 20mg timed-release 3x per day, he could take 10mg regular-release 6x per day. Because you can think of the time-release version as just giving him the oxycodone more slowly, it would be equivalent to taking smaller doses more frequently. But what has he been doing this whole time?
 
Keeping it simple and directed at your question:

OxyCodone is the catch all name

OxyContin is the brand name.

Think of BOUNTY paper towels vs the walmart brand. Theyre both paper towels, ones just a brand name.

Oxycodone is the name of the drug itself, oxycontin is the brand name manufactured by a specific company (as well as the FIRST time release formula of oxycodone, hence why the name was prevalent: it was the only one manufactured for many years). Both will serve the same and provide identical effects.

Now, as for IMMEDIATE vs CONTROLLED? Yes it sounds like the pharmacy fucked up! Unless they just fucked up the label, and not the pills themselves? I guess look up which pill you got.

Good news? YOU GET TO KEEP THOSE PILLS! Once a pharmacist gives you a controlled substance, IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU TO TRANSFER THAT SUBSTANCE TO ANYONE! That controlled substance is in a certain persons name, meaning they belong to them. End of story. Now yes, there are some laws regarding giving controlled substances to pharmacists to PROPERLY DISPOSE of them, but:

IT IS ILLEGAL FOR THE PHARMACIST TO ASK FOR THEM BACK!

They cannot do that. Their fuck up, your benefit! Granted since you guys do not abuse them it sounds like theyll just be good to have for a rainy day when your SOs pain gets too bad, but you guy get to keep em, legally speaking.
 
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Swimmingdancer- He has been taking it the way the bottle says. But, has noticed it doesn't provide relief for as long. When he takes it, it helps much better than the Extended Release, he says he has just been feeling break through pain in between doses and just deals with it as best as he can until the next dose. It's a catch 22 because the quick release helps stop the pain so much better, but doesn't last as long? And the other doesn't help with the pain as much but lasts longer? I feel bad for him because I wish there was a way for him to be out of pain the way the oxycodone does but not have the break through pain he is having until the next dose is due. That would be wonderful because his quality of life seems to be so much better when he is not hurting. It's hard to see someone you love in pain and not be able to do anything to really help except support him and try to get him through the times when he is in pain. He has never once taken it earlier than prescribed because he knows that will only do harm in the long run. When we left for our trip, he still had about 11 days of his oxycontin and had been taking it some days and the other some days (as prescribed) and this is what he has noticed. (what I wrote above) So, he still has about 9 days left before he is due for a refill and can't decide if he wants to ask the doctor about switching to the oxycodone or staying on the oxycontin because of the "catch 22" aspect I spoke about. He is going to talk to the Dr. about the pharmacy mistake. I think that in a way, the mistake has opened doors to be able to explore what works best for him. But, that certainly is not saying it was okay for us to not let him know right away. His Dr. knows he is in pain because of all of the MRI's and procedures he has had at Duke Medical Center, so I imagine he will be fine knowing that it was the wrong medication and he decided to take it anyway under the circumstances, there was nothing we could do to change it anyway since we were leaving before any pharmacy would be open to change it and the Doctors office would not be able to do anything about it either since it had to be a hand written RX to be filled. Make sense?
As far as still asking questions about it...I am always interested in anything someone has to say about their experience or knowledge of my question. I would still be open to hearing what anyone had to say about the *question* even 6 months from now? It's a learning experience for me and I can pass it along to him. You can never know too much or *know it all*...He did try the route you suggested and take smaller doses and it was very similar to the effects of the oxycontin. But for him, having the pain much more managable for a shorter time versus very little relief for a longer time was what meant more to him while we were traveling. I would hope it would be okay to still respond to and discuss my question as long as someone is listening or willing to provide input? If not, then I suppose I have misunderstood the message board and I am sorry. It's hard to be the "new person" and I was nervous asking any questions and that is because I worry about people judging me. (I'm not saying you did/are, I just can't tell sometime)
 
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