From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Oxycontin Content In Urine
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 12:04:20 -0700
Message-ID: <adtkgt$r2q$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>

Richard Cavell wrote in message ...
><su-texas@webtv.net> wrote in message
>news:14473-3D00C87E-9@storefull-2214.public.lawson.webtv.net...
>> Yesterday, a friend asked me a question, to which I super-dont know the
>> answer.
>
>It could be diluted by drinking a lot of water (but it would have to be,
>like, litres of extra water per day), or by taking diuretics.  Otherwise, I
>can't work it out either.


Of course the drug is oxycodone (there is no drug "Oxycontin"-- that's
merely the time release form).

Why the VA would be checking your urine to make sure you're taking a pain
drug is beyond me. If you were selling the stuff, wouldn't you be smart
enough to simply save one dose for the day before you went to a scheduled
appointment?  And why otherwise would they care if you didn't take a dose,
so long as you had the extra pills to show for it?  Which perhaps this
patient didn't.

Here is a Harris "Generalized Anxiety Disorder" primary criterion reported
symptom which you won't find in the DSM IV.  It is this: patient presents
you with at least 2 completely insolvable social problems in the first 5
minutes of the office visit. Always they involve money, and cannot be fixed
by ordinary medicine. Often they involve unreachable government agencies
working in inexplicable and outrageous ways which you've never never seen
yourself (the VA is a wonderful shill for this one-- even in people who've
worked in VAs as I have; you can manage to believe that somewhere there's a
VAH that could do ANYTHING). These problems are social outrages that you
want to get on the phone, write letters to the editor-- you feel your own
blood pressure go up....  "The police just came and took my father away and
wouldn't tell us the reason!"  "The last doctor told him he had such a short
time to live that he shouldn't even buy green bananas!"  "The insurance
company just said we wasn't covered because he was Jewish!"

Anxiety is best diagnosed not by criteria in the DSM IV, but by how much the
doctor's level of anxiety rises, in the first five minutes of the interview.
If you've got Uproar-- ie more than one problem which is absolutely
ESSENTIAL to solve, but there's no possible WAY it can be solved, short of
having the President of the United States and the US military get on the
case in the next hour.... why then you've been suckered.

Time to send these guys to the shrink.  You COULD attempt to treat with
SSRIs and anxiolytics, but Harris' second law of Anxiety Disorder is that
the people who need these drugs the worst will not take them.  In fact they
have 2 odd and incredible reasons why they can't or won't take them, or have
been denied them.  They are allergic to all known SSRIs. They can't afford
the ONLY benzodiazepine which doesn't give them diarrhea. They were denied
THAT one because Medicaid made a mistake and decided the patient was
deceased, and wouldn't listen even when the patient went to tell them
personally they were still alive!  The last time they took that pill, they
almost had a car wreck, and lost their drivers license because the alcohol
test came out positive, even though they hadn't been drinking. The judge
even admitted that, but he moved to another jurisdiction and the case file
was LOST. When they were in the hospital having a heart attack, the nurse
stole their last bottle of those pills. The hospital even admitted this, but
they wouldn't fire the nurse. The police said there was nothing they could
do.  The brother in law has been forging their name on prescriptions and
picking them up. The pharmacists know this, but won't go to the police.

And so it goes.

SBH







--
I welcome email from any being clever enough to fix my address. It's open
book.  A prize to the first spambot that passes my Turing test.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: tylenol and alcohol
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 13:08:31 -0700
Message-ID: <asod0u$8qm$1@slb1.atl.mindspring.net>

"obitwo" <lazarus235@aol.com> wrote in message
news:4d73e931.0212051048.47cb8433@posting.google.com...
> "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote in message
news:<aslu94$vts$1@slb9.atl.mindspring.net>...
> > "obitwo" <lazarus235@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:4d73e931.0212041046.1c017ae8@posting.google.com...
> > > Hi all.  This is my first post in this group.  I am a 22 year old
> > > male. Basically I am a bit, well, more than a bit of a hypochondriac.
> > > And 2 nights ago I consumed 2 extra strength tylenol for a bad
> > > headache.  I rarely use the stuff.  However, I used them at 7:30, but
> > > at 9:00 I was dragged out to a bar by a few friends.  Now, I rarely
> > > drink, but that night I had between the hours of 9 and 12 3 beers, not
> > > a whole lot.  The thing is I have been having light stomach (left
> > > side) pains since then.  Its nothing terrible, just kind of crampy
> > > type pain.  My main concern is with liver toxicity.  I am pretty sure
> > > I didnt overdo anything, and last checkup said my liver function was
> > > tip top.  I would just love some reassurance on this.  Did i drink to
> > > much with the tylenol, is it possible to have damaged my liver.  I
> > > currently have no medical insurance, so I would love some feedback to
> > > ease my mind, before I go fork over $100 to have a doctor check me
> > > out.  THank you, thank you, thank you all in advance.  Peace, love,
> > > and unity.  ALex.
> >
> >
> > Look, you KNEW you shouldna. We're sorry, Alex, but it's time you
> > started checking out the liver transplant list. You might as well not
> > even buy any green bananas.
> >
> > Why would somebody with chronic medical anxiety not have any medical
> > insurance?  The better to troll with?
> >
> > SBH
>
> Wow, I am truly amazed at how much of an ass some people can be.  I do
> not have insurance because my anxiety has made it impossible for me to
> currently attend school, which takes me off of family insurance.  And
> I recently lost my job at a landscaping firm, so currently I have no
> medical insurance.  I am just seriously concerned about my health.

COMMENT

I'm sure you are. But since anxiety is your primary problem, why don' t you
do something about that, and then see what else is left, afterward?



> While I was drinking I did not remember about the tylenol, It only
> came to worry the day after.  All I asked for was either you are ok,
> or maybe you should have it checked out.  Steve Harris you can get a
> big F@ck you, I did not know that posting here for the first time
> makes me a troll, maybe steve should go and prove his self worth in
> the real world rather than discrediting valid questions on an internet
> forum.

COMMENT

Hey, bub, I have a job in the real world and you don't. You're posting here
about your problems and I'm not posting about mine. You have the problem,
not me. Okay?

Now, nobody here minds answering legitimate concerns, but this isn't one.
Listen, Einstein, do you really think that normal people who drink at a bar
might be in real danger if they'd taken 2 Tylenol they'd forgotten about? Do
you think the drug would be on the market at all if it was that dangerous?
No?  Then what are you doing here, except pleading for attention like a 3
year-old? It's not the number of posts that makes for a troll, but the
quality.

An informational question would be: "How many Tylenol are dangerous to take
at once before a drinking bout?" The answer is something on the order of
9-12 regular strength pills.

And now a comment about your "big F@ck you". Chronic anxiety costs this
society something on the order of a third of our total health care costs,
which is hundreds and hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars a year. Most of it's
fairly treatable, once identified. There are some problems, inasmuch as
anxious people tend to be anxious regarding treatment suggestions. But if
they are honest and otherwise mentally okay, that can be dealt with.

The hard core chronic anxiety people who are hard to deal with have anxiety
or the closely related obscessive-compulsive disorder, plus some *other*
personality problem. That's generally some kind of narcissism. Not only are
they anxious and obscessed, but they are convinced that they are right and
the world is wrong, and no suggestion you make to them does any good,
because they know better, due to the fact that they are smarter than
everyone, and they are special. Attempts to treat their anxiety will be
deflected into some other issues, and if you insist on bringing it back to
the real problem, eventually there will be a response which is pure rage.

We don't know which category you fit into, yet (surprise us). Here on the
internet, diagnoses are worth even less than Lucy's 5-cent ones. That's
because we charge even less.  Still, see your doctor about your real
problem, not some liver tests to see if you are going to die from 2 Tylenol
and a drinking binge. If you're out of work and don't have medical
insurance, scrape up your resources and pay out of pocket for one psych
visit. You have enough $ to get online, I see, so you're not out on the
street like the Sally Fields character in E.R. (a perfect representation of
the narcissistic plus some other problem mental patient-- in her case
bipolar disorder).

Yer welcome. An we wuv you too, Alex.

S.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Needles
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 18:59:49 -0700
Message-ID: <bbjjqk$7j7$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>

"DANIEL MARX" <dmarx@shell1.iglou.com> wrote in message
news:3edd3a6d_1@news.iglou.com...

> If I were a hosptial administratior, I'd be more worried about my staff
> abusing the C-II pain relievers. They're easier to smuggle out than
> tanks of gas.

But liquids and solids are also infinitely easier to
inventory than gases, and pills and vials infinitely easier
to lock up than tanks.


>If someone has been taking nitrous, they will be back to normal within a
>few minutes. If a staff member took, say, Percocet, they'd be out for
>hours.


True enough, but the other problems outweigh this. Also, of
course, there's some demonization of nitrous. And some
underappriaciation of how much anxiety screws up nearly all
of medicine. Dentists have a fine appreciation of this. Many
ER (ED) docs have some idea, but would still be surprised if
they could put most patients on nitrous and see what's left.

You know that story of abdominal pain and opiates. For
years, patients with belly pain suffered for lack of pain
control because it was believed narcotics would mask
diagnosis. Turned out what somebody actually tried it,
narcotics if anything improved diagnosis. Tummy aches that
were nothing disappeared. Bad aches everywhere localized
themselves to the proper spot.  And severe pain was turned
into moderate pain that didn't distract the patient from
giving a better history.

So also in general with anxiety.

SBH