I am pro Zohydro, a new potent, hydrocodone-based, extended-release painkiller, because I am in so much pain, so much of the time.
I am pro Zohydro because there are so many days when I wake up and I’m literally in too much pain to open up a laptop and read my work emails. And I’m in too much pain to talk on the phone, watch TV, or take a shower.
Do you know what that’s like? To avoid taking a shower because you are in too much pain to stand up long enough to wash your hair? I do.
I am pro Zohydro because the pain on my right side shoots through me like a constant stream of agony and defeat. Because it feels like someone reached past my skin, and my blood vessels, and grabbed the last two bones in my right ribs and snapped them in half.
And somehow, at the same time, it feels like someone just dropped a cinder block on my chest and then whacked me with a baseball bat to make sure it hurt.
I am pro Zohydro because its sister drug Norco has helped me so much. It has given me moments of my life back. It has taken my pain away just enough for me to pretend that I might even be well.
It has allowed me to go to a Cubs games with my boyfriend, to go shopping with my sister and my mom, and to go to candy shows with my boss. It has allowed me to keep my job, take showers and, on particularly bad days, walk from the couch to the kitchen. It even kept me alive during my last mission trip as a youth leader. I wouldn’t trade that trip for my life.
I am pro Zohydro because my chronic pain has been like a vicious black alien that slithered out of the night sky and attached itself to my ribs, only to suck the life out of my body, a little more each day.
It has left me for dead, on the door steps of suicide, ready to end it all, and the only thing that has saved my life has been the pain pills from the merciful doctors who try to understand how horrible my chronic pain really is.
I am pro Zohydro because there’s a chance it could help me. There’s a chance it could give me a slice of my life back. And even if it can’t give me a slice of my life back, maybe it can give someone else a slice of their life back.
I am pro Zohydro because chronic pain really is that bad. Because I don’t just wake up feeling like I’ve been hit by semi-truck once in a while, the way people in the land of the well do when they have the flu, maybe once or twice year. For me, it’s not once in a while. It’s every day.
I can’t just call in sick to life whenever I feel like someone just stabbed me 27 times with a butcher knife. So, instead, every single day I have to pull myself out of the sheets, and lift off the covers, which tend to feel like they weigh 49 pounds, and I have to drag myself out of bed and face the world and try to function.
I have to live my life every single day, despite the fact that I’m literally in enough pain that I want to go to the emergency room all the time. But I know there is sometimes relief available. And that relief is opioid drugs. And if Zohydro is that drug for me or anyone else, I want them to have access to it.
I am pro Zohydro because 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain and they deserve hope. They deserve advances in medicine. They deserve cutting-edge treatments, advocates and support. And they deserve new drugs just like anyone else suffering from any other medical condition.
I am pro Zohydro because it will help people. Yes, I worry about those who may become addicted to it. And yes, I even worry that I will be among them. But more than that, I worry that one day, in the dark of night, I will no longer be able to bear the insane amount of pain in my ribs, grab a knife and slit my wrists, and finally find the relief I so desperately search for.
I am pro Zohydro because I would rather find that relief from a prescription.
I have gone through the EXACT stuff you have, except I have now been on Oxy for 5years. the worst thing? I have gone through 5 doc’s, and my current doc wants to play games about risk and he losing his license, etc .. all that talk. after so many years of doing everything right and following orders, putting up with tapers and now at 50% of my ideal daily mg dose I sit her and keep turning to my sofa, ready to lay down for another 20 hours and watch the TV. check the internet and perhaps go for a short walk? …maybe tomorrow,. I tried all of the major Opioid’s – and HMC and even Morphine slow release got me sick. Nightmares, cramps, horror. so I tell them, him, the docs and moronic specialists that only want to push us on 1 and just 1 course = methadone. I then give up on life & become a drone. Sleep and die. Not me. I used to get out daily, swim, hang with friends, volunteer – live. but no, no, no. At such high, above 200mg EQ* – of Morphine dosage he says, the Canadian braniacs say Oxycodone is not effective and has a diminishing return. Please. this is utter lies. so now i too shower 3 times a week, and life passes me buy. I cannot look for a new dr as the current state of paranoia in Canada is extreme. We are automatically labelled as thieves, liars, and the last time my dr wanted to send me to a shrink.. for what? I would eat them alive. My mind is strong, too much so. Thankfully. Or I would be long gone. I never ever thought of the suicide angle nor do I see so, I will rather relocate to Asia and set up a field of Poppy. farm. Literally. I hate booze, non smoker. Nothing else. And the best? I still get a RX for under 200mg Oxy a day, find I am barely making it. But do. The pain is managed – maybe 59% o fit -. good enough I guess. I am now too sore and my back says lay down. but I should be hiking, running, living. Not today. as for work? anyone who knows me expected me to be a multi+ millionaire + today & ere I sit with the opposite true. … all I ask for is being able to live independent and travel every year. perhaps better times will come? I know they must. Carry on. I must beat it.