WTF? Two random people asked me for VICODIN today!

[Bennyboy]

I am out shopping at a couple of places in the burbs. I meet up wth an old friend and some guy comes up out of the blue and asks me if I have any vicodin. Now, I am an older guy and dressed nicely and the guy I was talking to was a chinese guy in his late seventies. So I don't know why he would ask either of us.

Then across the street I am having coffee by myself at Starbucks and some girl does the same thing. "have any vicodin" she asks.

I must mention that both of these stores or malls have a Rite Aid and a Walgreens in them.

IS this what is going on? Are people this addicted to Vics that they are doing this now? Do people get a script and turn right around and sell them in front of the store now? I myself hate the fucking things and when I have been prescribed them I threw the rest away when I was over the pain.

I am talking with my daughter later and she tells me that she has friends that are prescribed them, 120 a month, paid for by MediCal and she sell them all. She told me it is the preferred pain reliever for MediCal and more scripts are written for Vicodin than any other drug. WOW. JUST WOW>

[leeroysphitz]

1. You must just have "that look"...

BTW got any Vikes? :)

[WCGreen]

18. Probably wearing a hoodie with a beeper...

[Redstone]

2. I am NOT selling any of mine! Not for any price.

Redstone

[KitchenWitch]

3. No doubt!

I needs mine when the pain takes over.

[Jamastiene]

27. Thanks for that clarification.

I was actually gonna ask. :P

[Bennyboy]

4. NO I DON"T HAVE ANY VICS!!! Smoke some weed and......

CHILL THE FUCK OUT!

[knitter4democracy]

5. In our area, they go for $10 a pill.

Hubby just had a patient supposedly call in for a refill, but when he called her to double check, she had no idea what was going on. He had to call the pharmacy and the cops and get everything sorted out. That's not the first time, either.

For those it works on, apparently they can be quite addictive. I wouldn't know--narcotics don't work on me except to make me puke rather spectacularly.

[hippywife]

11. Always a good thing

to remind people to peel the labels of your prescription bottles and shred them. Oh, and the sheet they staple to the top of the bag, too. It has the counter-indications and warnings on them but the top always has the name and prescription number, etc.

[Mojambo]

12. 10 bucks a pill!!? What's the dosage?

That's crazy

[knitter4democracy]

15. Hubby thinks all of them. That's what they're charging on the street.

That's what a couple of patients and the DA told him. :shrug:

[madrchsod]

28. 10 if they have a really bad habit otherwise 5 where i`m at

i do`t puke i just feel god awful for days during and after.

[LaurenG]

6. Maybe there is a secret code that tells others you have vicodin

for sale. Were you wearing the "red ascot"? (I just made that up but it does seem odd, doesn't it).

[DarkTirade]

7. Maybe there was some police drug sting in the area

and they couldn't find any regular drugs to bust so they were looking at people who are willing to give away prescription drugs. :P

[Taverner]

8. Silly Rabbits

Don't they know they could make something similar out of dried opium poppies and everclear?

[Frosty1]

9. Must be a lot of pain out there today

:shrug:

[knitter4democracy]

16. Some get a high from it. Not if they're in pain, though.

If they're having chronic pain, it can be hard to get pain meds from some doctors. That ticks Hubby off, so he prescribes what's needed and just keeps closer track of his scrips and patients.

[Frosty1]

21. I'm not talking about physical pain.

I'm talking about the emotional pain that drives people to alter consciousness any way they can.

[knitter4democracy]

22. Ah. Yes, you're very right about that.

Times have gotten harder, and more people need that escape. It's cheaper than therapy at the start, and then if addiction gets you, you're screwed.

[SoxFan]

10. After my post office fiasco

it might be three! The post office was closed by 3:20, when i showed up needing a book of stamps for the last batch of Christmas cards.

NOTE: To the associates of NH Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley, who I have learned are watching my posts, the vicodin part is a joke. Suck it.

[Bennyboy]

13. Hey, this was by a post office!

That explains it all!

[DarkTirade]

14. ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlWH9uICH-Q

[Bennyboy]

17. nice...

and vicodin like....

[Generic Brad]

19. So, you're saying you have no Vicoden then

Have any black tar heroin instead?

[Bennyboy]

20. No Oxy's neither Rushbo.......

Knowing that he likes to score in shopping mall parking lots....

[Lyric]

23. This is from someone who knows.

It's hard to get narcotic pain relievers from doctors in a lot of places these days. I have to wait a stupid year just to get to the specialist I need to get a proper diagnosis of my auto-immune disorders--moderate psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, fibromyalgia, and Crohn's disease. Apparently the rheumatologist is booked up for a solid year. I've been living with horrific back pain and sciatica from an *untreated* spinal herniation that left me numb and partially paralyzed for almost a year before it started to heal enough for me to walk again. I have untreated, not-officially-diagnosed endometriosis (not "diagnosed" because that requires a surgical lap and visual confirmation, and I don't have the time to take off from school right now to recover from surgery.) I have a disorder that causes me to get large, painful cysts in delicate locations on a regular basis. Oh--and I have kidney stones that are in a complicated location, and cause me chronic pain. Most days, I can hardly get around. Very low "maintenance" doses of narcotic painkillers are pretty much the only reason I'm able to function *at all*--and that's only if it's not the week before my period is due to start, which means I really can't move around much whether I have pain medication or not.

I live in pain every single day of my life, but the only time I ever get pain medication that actually works is when I'm "fortunate" enough to have a kidney stone episode. For that, they'll give me 20 hydrocodone or Percocet, and you damned well better believe that I take the smallest doses (I usually divide each pill into quarters, or sometimes eighths) so that they last. I've come to realize that there are a LOT of people out there suffering, and even breaking the law, not because they're "addicts", but because doctors are so freaking paranoid about those medicines that they under-treat or ignore chronic pain. I have a distant relative who has severe chronic pain from chemotherapy-damaged nerves and body tissues that has to use half her disability check every month to buy pain medication from a neighbor, because her doctor won't give her anything stronger than 800 mg Motrin or Naproxen. She almost died from cancer, is lucky to be alive today, but her life would be pain-filled and miserable if not for the neighbor she gets her pain medicine from.

There is something horribly broken about our health care system, and until it gets fixed, I am not inclined to assume that most people who are out there buying pain meds are recreational addicts. I'm not saying you think that way either--it's more of a general statement. Please don't take offense.

[Maraya1969]

29. I know exactly what you are talking about and I'm very sorry you have to go through

this. I wish I could give you a magic answer but I don't have one. I kind of have a similar situation in that my stomach was the cause of my severe pain for a long time and the doctors would only give me various antacids and such and never anything to treat the pain. So I went to a pain clinic and told them about my neck pain and after the MRI the doctor said it was quite serious and that I had a reason to be in pain, (for my neck...if I had mentioned my stomach he would have waved me away). So he is giving me pills but in the beginning I was just taking them for my stomach and saying it was for my neck. And now I have cut them down because I got out of the "cycle of pain"

The thing is my neck was not hurting because I was not doing anything except sit on the couch because my stomach hurt so much!

I don't know if any of that can help you. I don't feel like I am doing anything wrong. I really feel like the doctors that would not give me medication for my stomach were very wrong to let me suffer.

Maybe a hug will help. :hug:

[knitter4democracy]

30. The doctor that replaced Hubby in his last job won't prescribe pain killers at all.

She told one of his former patients (who then transferred to Hubby) that pain is all in the mind and that people can just get over it. She's in an internal medicine practice that specializes in elder care. Really. Hubby was furious. Word's gotten around that he actually treats pain, so he's had a couple of fraud issues, but most of the time, he'd rather err on the side of the patient.

Then there are the doctors in the area who call fibro "SLS syndrome" (stands for "Sh***y Life Syndrome). Hubby just gladly takes their patients and stays up on the latest treatments.

For ten years, the doctors thought I had endo, too. I had all the classic signs. Cutting out meat and dairy really helped with the pain until about nine years into it. Then the pain went off the charts. We tried painkillers from every class, and it hurt Hubby that he couldn't help me. I just can't do narcotics at all. I finally convinced my specialist (great guy in Madison, WI, if you're interested) to do surgery, and it turned out to be my appendix all along.

I know a fabulous rheumatologist here in Michigan if you want to try him. He's a fabulous guy on top of being a great doctor. He doesn't take so long to get into, too. He took on a partner, and Hubby says the partner's even better, which I find hard to believe.

[Lyric]

33. I wish I could, but

I'm a low-income college student whose only "insurance" is Medicaid. I'm stuck with whatever the local docs can dredge up. *sigh*

[knitter4democracy]

34. Oh crap. I'm so sorry.

More and more aren't taking Medicaid since it doesn't pay worth beans.

I know some great doctors in Kalamazoo who do, though. The wait is long, but it's worth it. It's the local residency program (one of the busiest offices in town), and they have a great Ob/Gyn who's there once a week.

[hyphenate]

37. I switched doctors just about a year ago,

and my new doctor won't give me any pain pills either. It's a damned good thing that I read up on things. though, because I found a lifesaver for my fibro and arthritic pain--meloxicam, which is an NSAID. It helps a lot in the muscular pain, but I've got diabetic neuropathy which is not helped by this.

When I was taking "real" pain pills, I took Tylenol with codeine because Vicodin and other stronger pain pills gave me wicked nausea. The Tylenol #3 did the same, but I took it only at night to help me sleep, so it didn't do a number on my stomach. I can't take Ultram, which gives me hallucinations and nightmares, and I haven't heard of another class of drugs to help the neuropathy. (I already take several for it, including Neurontin) It simply hurts. I've never been an addictive personality, so addiction isn't a problem, but you get treated like one every time you ask for something to help the pain.

A pain specialist wants to put a neurotransmitter in me, and I'm like, isn't there a fucking alternative to such an invasive procedure that can be considered? A couple of pain pills versus a complex implant?

There is a huge stigma attached to being in chronic pain--it's like if you need to dull the pain from a pill, you are a drug addict regardless of the truth.

I can manage, though at times the stabbing pain makes me want to cut off my legs.

An aside: ny dad, who had lung cancer, was in the hospital, days away from death, and the fucking doctor wouldn't give him a painkiller. After my dad died, my mom wanted to sue the hospital, but she never did. Things have changed on that score to a degree (this was in 1984) but I can't fucking believe they would deny a dying man something to ease his pain.

[gmoney]

24. Do you look like Hugh Laurie from "House" and carry a cane? (eom)

[madrchsod]

25. yes there are vicodin junkies...

i know a few that would buy any amount anyone has. i was on vicodin for over a month and a half and god that shit is awful.

[Jamastiene]

26. Well, I couldn't help it. I have a serious hangover.

Dude, don't narc on me like this. I'm hurt. :cry:

[underpants]

31. You misheard them

they were asking you if you were one of the VIKINGS. This must mean that they are finally about to mount their attack. They have been preparing for this for centuries. I must go.

[NewJeffCT]

32. Hey dude, got any Vicodin?

I don't even know what it is, to be honest. I know it's some sort of prescription medication, no?

[Momgonepostal]

36. It's a prescription pain med

I've had prescriptions for it before, after I got my wisdom teeth out and after I was in a minor car accident. I really don't see its appeal for uses other than pain relief. :shrug:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

35. With a name like "Bennyboy" ...

Hey, man, you got any uppers?
:hi: