Vicodin, Percocet to be pulled off the market?

So did anyone catch on the news this morning that the FDA govt advisory committee has advised the FDA to take Vicodin and Percocet (actually, any narcotic pain medicine with acetominophen) off the market? The FDA doesn't have to follow the rulings of its advisory panel, but it usually does. That puts me in a complete panic. Anyone else? I'm on fentanyl patches and liquid percocet. I used to take oral oxycodone (which has no acetominophen) but then my pharmacist (and all the others in town) stopped being able to get it. He can get me it in pill form, but not oral form. I can't take anything in pill form because of having no intestines. It's funny because I raised this concern with my GI Joe last month. I asked him how safe it was for me to be taking percocet because if TPN usage over time leads to liver problems, and so does acetominophen, doesn't that increase my chances of getting liver problems even sooner than normal? (He had no real answer.) I'm so panicked about this. If they do pull these drugs off the market, I can't imagine it happening suddenly. Narcotics aren't medicines that you can just stop taking; you have to be weaned off them to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

By charliegirl3
Posted July 2, 2009 at 4:17 pm
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Woeful,
I did not catch the news this morning. Was it on a big network so I can look it up. I am on Tylox a form of perocet. Like you if it goes off the market I am going to be out of luck because that is about the only one that I can take without side effects. Keep me posted.

By Novagrad
Posted July 2, 2009 at 7:54 pm
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I'm allergic to Percocet and Vicodin but when I was working as a nurse practitioner, I always thought that these drugs had way too much Tylenol in them. I used to try and prescribe the versions that had very little or no Tylenol in them, because patients often took them or needed them more often than they were supposed to take them. So many physicians prescribe these drugs without even explaining that there is acetaminophen (Tylenol) in the medication and patients take more than they should. It's not necessarily the opioid that does the harm, it's the acetaminophen! But there are versions of the drug that contain either aspirin or ibuprofen instead of the acetaminophen and there are versions that contain only the opioid and nothing else. So there will still be good pain medications for patients!

Mimi

By Woeful
Posted July 3, 2009 at 1:29 pm
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I first heard about it on CNN News. The story is also up at their website. It might be up at the FDA website too (I haven't checked). I've also seen the story on the New York Times and Washington Post websites. You can do a google search too -- there are dozens of stories (and commentary) about it. There's no decision yet about how pharma will address it if the FDA agrees with the advisory panel (3 different options, that I saw, are being considered, but with Vicodin, apparently there isn't any non-acetaminophen-containing version made by any manufacturers). But it worries me because since when does the federal government not get its way? :( I've never understood why acetaminophen has to be included in the first place. The so-called experts (I wonder if that's just drug maker 'experts') say that acetaminophen enhances the effects of the narcotic, but I question that finding. I always got better effect from straight out oxycodone than Percocet (which has oxycodone and acetaminophen), and less nausea/stomach problems. I know others who feel the same way. What's making me nervous is I can only take liquid forms of medicine. Oxycodone oral solution is now impossible to find. The FDA controls how much of the drug can be made in a given year. Once that supply is used up, that's it. The manufacturer cannot make more until the next year. My pharmacist has owed me a bottle for 3 months now. (Ironically, they switched me over to Roxicet oral solution, which now may be discontinued per the FDA's recommendations.) My doctor mentioned switching me over to oral solution morphine, but I *hate* morphine. I've been on every form of narcotic pain medicine available over the past 10 years. Dilaudid works best, but as that is the sort of 'queen bee' of narcotics; I don't like the idea of taking that every day because it's so strong. Straight oxycodone has always worked best for me. But now I'm getting doubly nervous because the FDA is now also talking about taking fentanyl patches off the market because of continued life-threatening side effects/deaths. But the majority of those conditions are caused by people who MISUSE THEIR PRESCRIPTIONS or don't read the inserts, which clearly state how to take the medication and how you shouldn't apply a heating pad or take a hot shower or sunbathe while on the patch. A smaller percentage of the problem is caused by physicians who wrongly prescribe the patch (it's not meant for use post-surgery or for headaches or mild pain). So great. The only two meds I can take that actually help with the pain, one is impossible to get and the other might be removed from the market. All because of a minority population who abuse the drugs or don't bother reading the instructions or don't listen to their pharmacist's instructions. I could cry. (Of course, the super-cynical side of me wonders if maybe the FDA wasn't paid its kickbacks and that's why certain drugs are now endangered. Can you tell I don't trust the FDA as far as I can spit? Men, and teenaged boys, misuse Viagra. I don't see the FDA threatening to pull Viagra off the market. Oh, wait, Viagra is a HUGE moneymaker.) If anyone is interested, there is a post halfway down the page by someone named cherish22 about different drugs being pulled from the market, in short supply, or in danger of being pulled, at http://www.spine-health.com/forum/pain-medications/no-more-oxycodone.

To top it off, I finally get a new local primary care doc (an internist instead of a general practitioner), set up an appointment, and they call me back to tell me, by the way, they don't prescribe any narcotic meds for any reason as a matter of office policy. WTF?? My mother talked to our pharmacist when she picked up some scripts for me yesterday and he told her that's a growing issue in my county and state. More and more doctors are refusing to prescribe any type of narcotic pain medicine because it's become the #1 abused drug, even over marijuana, by teenagers. They are apparently stealing their parents' medications and then selling them to their friends. This is absurd. I want someone from the federal government to explain to me why a majority of people in chronic pain will have to suffer because of a minority who are abusing/selling these drugs, yet they continue to allow the sale of cigarettes, which science has proven KILLS you or at the very least causes all kinds of life-threatening health problems over the long term.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm just getting so tired of the government, non-medical people, intruding more and more into our lives. If you're as worried as I am about one day suddenly finding out you can't get a particular script anymore, please bombard the FDA with letters of complaint (or just go to their website and lodge a complaint) and write your state's representatives about your concerns.

By charliegirl3
Posted July 3, 2009 at 4:15 pm
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Woeful,
I would talk to your new doctor and explain everything. If they can't help you I would suggest what I do is go to my Primary dr. Just a regular MD for all my medicines and my GI doctor for all the problems I have. That really works out great for me. I also keep my medicine in a lock box so nobody can get at them but me. I do have kids in the house and all the friends that come with them and I just feel alot safer that way. I hope that you can find a solution for all this. Keep me posted on the medicines. I only seen a few minutes of it on T.V. With my scripts my doctor has me sign for them and only me. So no one can do anything. I had a friend that abused drugs and she died from a seizure from mixing all the meds. She went into Rehab and learn more tricks to get the medicines that she wanted. She even had a pharmacy drop them off at the Rehab place. Think of that one. Have a great 4. Charliegirl

By Novagrad
Posted July 3, 2009 at 7:44 pm
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Woeful:

I'm on a fentanyl patch as well as fentanyl lollipops for breakthrough pain (I'm allergic to everything else) and my internist also said that he does not prescribe narcotics. He has done it for me for the last few months, but I don't think he will do it for that long and I'm not sure who will. He had referred me to pain management doctors who don't prescribe pain meds in Massachusetts - they just do procedures for pain. Bizarre, in my opinion. When I lived in NYC, all of my doctors used to offer to write me for the narcotics because they know I don't abuse them and really need them. The whole thing is frustrating. I might need to find a new internist for this very reason and I hate to do that because mine knows me so well.

Mimi

By Lynee
Posted July 4, 2009 at 10:40 am
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A friend of mine was telling me about a brain-injured friend of hers who "stockpiles" his medications because of his fears that doctors will stop prescribing them for him. She was really worried about him doing this and I say more power to him! I have severe gastroparesis and the only way to control my pain so far has been Percocet. I still take it in relatively small doses - anything more and it makes me sick - eventually I know we'll have to find something else. I get so frustrated when they just pull things from the market. At one point, I had my GP under control with a drug that was pulled and things went generally downhill from there. Very frustrating.

Thank goodness I found a great primary care physician who is working with me on the pain control. Like you I went to a pain clinic thinking they were the answer only to find out they don't really work to control pain!

Lynee

By charliegirl3
Posted July 4, 2009 at 11:59 am
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I went the pain clinic route only to find out that they wanted me off everything and to try practicing meditation and Over the counter meds. I said to my regular doctor that I would never go back. what are the lollipops that you are talking about. never heard of them. How do they work. Are they short acting or something to get you relief right away. Because if they give you relief right away that would help when I `have flare up

By prettykitty
Posted July 4, 2009 at 5:22 pm
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Are they taking it off the market because of so many people abusing it or robbing pharmacies for the medicine?
I was on Dilaudid for a while after I initally got my feeding tube in, but now try to use non-medicine forms of pain relief as much as possible (heat, meditation, self-hypnosis, massage, and homeopathic medicine).
My GI doctor told me that most narcotic medicines can slow down your digestive system even more if you have gastroparesis and make you feel even worse. Does anyone else have that problem? If my pain is really bad, I take children's ibuprofen (that's the only kind I can find in liquid form OTC).

Jessie

By Woeful
Posted July 5, 2009 at 6:40 pm
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Mimi,

That is absurd (that a PAIN clinic won't prescribe narcotics; that's partly why they EXIST). I'm getting sick and tired of being 'penalized' that I have pain but not cancer-caused pain. If you have cancer, they can't throw narcotics at you fast enough. But you don't have to have cancer to have severe pain. I even told my new doctor (I have to use an internal medicine doc as my primary care physician because the general practitioners where I live aren't comfortable treating someone with all my health issues; that's small towns for ya, sigh), look, if you're worried about doctor shopping or addiction or anything like that, call and talk to my GI Joe. He's been my GI Joe for 10 years and he can give you my full history of narcotic use (and assure him I'm NOT a drug abuser). My appointment isn't until the 28th, which is frustrating. Half the reason I got a new primary care doc was because my current one is also in the city, in the same hospital where my GI is. Some 30 miles away. That wasn't a problem when I had my own apartment, which was only 8 miles from downtown. But now that I'm living with my mom in BF, Egypt, and she will not drive the interstate and I'm not yet up to driving long distances, I don't have a choice but to find a doc where I'm living now (and the pickings are slim). Sigh. I'm serious though, about going on a writing campaign (and writing letters to the AMA too). I think with the Michael Jackson situation (apparently they found prescriptions at his house for all kinds of meds, from narcotic painkillers to valium, in his own name and in fake names) and all the press it's getting, it's going to become that much more difficult for those of us who DO take our pain medications responsibly to get them. And that's just really worrisome. And it's the federal government's fault. I worked for 15 years in medical publishing (I helped doctors write medical textbooks), and I always asked my authors about narcotic pain meds and why so many were so hesitant to prescribe them. Nearly all said it was because of fear of the federal government 'determining' they were mis-prescribing and taking away their medical licenses. That's just tragic :/

By Woeful
Posted July 5, 2009 at 6:44 pm
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Jessie,

They want them off the market because of the increasing liver damage the acetaminophen causes. But that's because of people themselves taking the medications irresponsibly (taking too many at one time or too many in any given day). Another reason is that narcotic pain meds are becoming the #1 drug abused by teenagers (they steal them from their parents, or they sell their own if they were prescribed them for some reason, like a root canal or wisdom teeth extraction), even over marijuana. I have two cops in my family and asked both about it over the weekend. They said that was the biggest growing drug problem in my town -- abuse/illegal use of narcotic pain meds.

By bluangl77
Posted July 23, 2009 at 1:05 am
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I am on Oxycodone and Fentanyl patches too. They make me urinate in a cup and test it to make sure that I am taking the correct amount and I guess also to see that I am not taking illegal drugs with it or selling it and not taking it at all. If doctors have a problem they should have their patients urine tested. My Gastro doc gave me Codeine for diarrhea. I only took a few pills over the course of the month. When I took the "pee" test, it came up in my urine and he questioned me about it. I do not think they could get rid of all pain meds. There are a lot of people who seriously need them. Pain is no joke and it makes your illness worse when you are in pain. If your doc is worried, he/she should do a urine test on his patients.

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