Opioids Question about codeine and xanax

[sevinnyne]

This morning i had a telephone interview and took a xanax (1mg) to calm me down because my anxiety was through the roof.

Anyway about 4-5 hours later i done a CWE with 8/300 aspirin pills. - I used 96 pills in total - (768mg codeine)

I know codeine has a ceiling dose but I've been getting a great buzz from using that amount lately. - i have a high tolerance.

about 20 minutes after dosing i started burning up and my whole upper body and face turned bright red and i was itching more than i usually do from codeine. My heart was also really pounding through my chest.

I always make sure i eat before taking codeine to help avoid some of the nausea. I ate a sandwich about 10 minutes before i took the codeine cwe.

I was just wondering if anyone knew why this had happened this time round, i've always experienced the itching and some redness on my neck and chest when I'm using codeine, but never the pounding heart and my whole body burning up.

Was it something to do with the Xanax maybe?

 

[bunge]

It sounds like a histamine rush.
Its possible to become allergic to drugs like codeine and begin to have reactions like you described above, suddenly and without warning.

All you can do is take less and use an antihistamine like diphenhydramine (benedryl).

Be careful mixing benzos with opiates, its a potentially fatal combination.

 

[sevinnyne]

It sounds like a histamine rush.
Its possible to become allergic to drugs like codeine and begin to have reactions like you described above, suddenly and without warning.

All you can do is take less and use an antihistamine like diphenhydramine (benedryl).

Be careful mixing benzos with opiates, its a potentially fatal combination.

Thanks for your reply. I very rarely take Xanax, its only when i really need it so it didn't even occur to me to even check if the Xanax could interact. I took an Advil PM to try and help with the itching (didn't have any diphenhydramine on its own, just what was in the advil pm) and that has worked. I didn't know you could suddenly get an allergy to codeine. Thank's for sharing that, i'm going to have to be a lot more careful from now on.

It was just really strange, thats been my usual dose for a long time and i've never had a problem before. It was a little scary - I kept falling in and out of consciousness for very short periods of time. I've just read up online about mixing Xanax with codeine

 

[bunge]

The alprazolam/codeine combo was what caused you to fall in and out of consciousness. Thats whats so dangerous about mixing opiate/oids and benzos, it kills tens of thousands of people every year.

The itching, flushing and swelling is a seperate issue caused just by the codeine, although the alprazolam likely potentiated and raised the codeines effects.

I would advise less codeine in future. Anything above 400mg is just excessive and if your tolerance is that high then moving to a stronger opiate might be appropiate because codeune can have some rare but nasty side effects at such high doses.