So any way,
I had a meeting with Dr. Clay, my primary care doc. I asked him about cold filtering the acetaminophen (500Mgs per tablet) out of my codeine/codone. He said to me that there was no problem with it as long as i still received good benifit from the drug. I do. He assured me that there was no more danger from the pure codeine/codone as with the mix. He told me that the mix brings the street value way down as druggies livers cannot filter all of the ace and many opioid druggies die of liver death from the ace overload. I like to filter it to keep the ace out of my liver.
To filter out the ace the tablets should be crushed to a powder and mixed into two ounces of hot (not boiling) water. Cool the liquid in the fridge or freezer until it cools to below 40 degrees but above freezing and filter thru a natural coffee filter. The ace will have solidified but the codeine/codone will drip thru the filter.
DRUG RESPONSIBLY
I also asked Dr. Clay about mtx and alcohol because i sure miss my beers. Dr. Clay said absolutely no alcohol with mtx. Dr. Clay said that unless a liver biopsy is performed the actual damage done to the liver cannot be known and that in many instances by the time the blood tests show damage, it is too late to reverse the damage to the liver. Dr. Clay also informed me that prednisone by itself is damaging to the stomach and gastro areas and that is why he prescribes Omeprazole along with the prednisone to protect the stomach and it also will repair damage to the stomach. He then said that mixing prednisone with alcohol is very damaging to the stomach and gastro areas and is another reason to avoid alcohol. As always tho, my best advise to all of us is, always check with a doctor.
Lev
Lev, can't you just get codeine without the tylenol in it? Personally, it seems
these meds are available without acetominophen
darvocet (with tylenol) is Propoxyphene without
percocet has tylenol oxycodone does not
vicodin has tylenol hydrocodone does not
I also don't understand this cold filtering thing...why go to that much effort when you can get the active ingrediant without the tylenol
Lorster,
I meant to ask him about pure codeine or codone but he sidetracked me by offering morphine patches and we got into the i don't want to graduate to morphine discussion. It's kind of a pain filtering the codone but, it's just another drug that doesn't go thru my liver. I take 25mgs of mtx and 20mgs of prednisone along with the incidentals plus 50mgs of enbrel. I push alot thru my old liver. I hope to live to the cure and beyond. I know it is just around the corner. I see my rheumy in two weeks and will ask her and let you know what she says.
Lev
Buckeye,
Maybe you can get them. I have a bottle of 120 hydrocodone 5mg/acetaminophen 500mg tablet right in front of me, also known as 357s. I also have a bottle of 40 oxycodone 5mg/acetaminophen325mg tablets. So maybe you can get it, but i don't have it therefore, i cold filter them and keep the acetaminphen out of my liver and that's the reason for the cold filtering. If i can get them without, i will, my Dr. is very liberal and will prescribe just about anything for my comfort.
Lev
ok that just sounds like way to much work to just get it w/o the tylenol..why do you not want the tylenol in it Lev?Tylenol is very rough on your liver. Google Tylenol and read the articles related to Tylenol and liver disease. Also, Tylenol for some weird reason ( guess because it's handy) is used by suicide prone individuals. When they survive the high doses of Tylenol that they've ingested they invariably end up in liver failure or very serious, irreversible liver damage.Tylenol is horrid on the liver. Bad bad stuff for it. You can get the narcs without the tylenol in them. I would be asking for that rather than increasing the chance to OD. Yech. Horrid way to go and they do nasty stuff to ya in the ER if you accidentally do it. You said your doc is pretty liberal and would prescribe whatever to help you be comfy. That is awesome. Talk to him about the narcs with no acetominophen in them. When we are in pain we tend to get brain fog and that increases the chance for an accident to happen while you are cold filtering. And ewww you do not want to go thru that. They give you activated charcoal and you vomit black stuff for a longer time than you want to. And it is that painful never ending type of vomiting. Just be careful. No matter what our past is you are still a person and I want no harm to come to anyone ever.
What about the morphine pills? There is no acetominophen in those. At least not the ones that I take. Same concept as the patches...time release pain control. There are also morphine pumps they implant just under the skin that you go and get refilled like every month or so. I do lidoderm patches (non narcotic) for localized pain and they work awesome for me. My daughter does them also on her hands for her JRA. You can use up to three at a time anywhere on the body for a period of 12 hours.
What about that non alcoholic beer? Has the same taste as regular beer. I live with the occaisonal beer drinker (heck I live in beer capital USA lol) and he has said it is how that cold beer tastes after a long hot night at work. He is a welder that welds on big stuff so it is always hot even in winter lol. Just a thought on the beer thing so you don't have to miss it.
Man I hate pred. Everyday more and more. But what the heck are we gonna do when we don't produce enuf corticosteroids on our own?
Well,
I probably make it sound like some big science project but actually it only takes about two minutes at most. It's like every thing i don't want to do, i am fatigued.
Once again, cold filtering does not strenghthen the codeine/codone or make it more lethal. I still stick close to prescribed dosage, maximum 6 5mg tablets. Druggies usually use between 200 and 400 mgs so i am not concerned about accidently overdosing. It is not likely that i would mistakenly crush up 40 tablets instead of 6 tablets.
I really don't want to graduate to morphine. Even the codones, i try to use as little as possible. I know that at one time i was using the codone for "the feeling" more so than for pain, i even enjoyed that severe itching. I don't do that anymore. I realize that the more pain meds i do, the less they will do, and so if i do need them in the future, they will be less effective. The body quickly builds resistance to pain meds. The bottom line is that with 6 tablets of hydrocodone, i am running 3,000 mgs of acetaminophen thru my liver at one time, hence i take two minutes of my time to filter out those 3,000 mgs. I really don't care if anyone wants to run those 3,000mgs thru their liver, go for it or filter it.
As for the non-alcohol beer, i'll pass on that. I quit smoking cold turkey and so i can go with-out the beer. I still enjoy second hand smoke. I do do a couple of monster drinks a day, the green ones. Oh, not 2 at one time. One in the morning and one about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. They help get me up and going, I got to where i hated the after taste of coffee and it made me cough and bothered my sinuses. Spring time is here and summer is just around the corner, so very many good things to do. I love spring and summer. Yee hah.
Lev
What about norco, its the same exact hydrocodone as vicodin but it comes in 7.5 mg or 10mg with only 325 of tylenol instead of the 500mg.
I take pure codeine for pain. My family doc prescribes it for me. I, too, want to avoid the tylenol. I'm in Canada so I'm not sure if it's available in the U.S.
why doesn't your doctor just write the script for the acetomeniphen free versions. They are available by prescription I can recommend a reputable pharmacy (Codeine, Norco, Hydrocodone) - allcheappills.org I received the order and it was on time and the pills work great. Straight codine is hard on the stomach. They gave me some for a bad eye injury once. I was completly misserable.