Tuesday, January 25, 2011

New Meds: Good News, Bad News

Good News: The doctor wrote a 'scrip for a different tummy-calmer! (Ondansetron, it is, sounding as if it was last seen menacing Tokyo).

Bad News: Got it, looked at the package insert and it's an opiate.

Geesh. Darned thing had better work. And without messin' me up otherwise.

9 comments:

Robb Allen said...

Ugh. When I was suffering vertigo and severe nausea (6 weeks of HELL), they prescribed me Meclazine which came in the exact dosage as the OTC stuff, but only 3 times the cost.

For a while, I could pop that stuff like Tic-Tacs. By the time they wrote me a script for the stronger stuff, I had felt better. Part of my hesitation was that due to my brain chemistry, I don't really care for the loopy feeling a lot of meds cause, so I avoided it.

I hope it works for you. Lord knows angry tummy isn't fun.

Ambulance Driver said...

Off the top of my head, I can't think of an antiemetic that's an opiate.

Lomotil contains a mild opiate that shouldn't make you loopy, but it's usually prescribed for problems with the other end.

The good news is, if it is Lomotil, you could drop a couple tabs of that stuff in the White River and there will be a sandbar there the next day.

Anonymous said...

I really hope you find something that works for you. I don't much know you outside of your writing, but I worry just the same.

Jim

Stranger said...

Paregoric, camphorated tincture of opium, whatever they call it now, was the classic all round tummy soother, and an opiate.

I probably had a gallon of the stuff before I went to school, both for vomiting and rubbed on gums for teething pains. No refrigeration in the dust bowl!

Of course, it had to be banned 'cause one in a few tens of hundreds would become addicted to the stuff. Every so often you would see a fresh frozen "dope fiend" who fell asleep in one of Chi's alleys and who will now sleep until!

Stranger

Standard Mischief said...

Well Marinol isn't an opiate. I really can't stand hippies, but if it or something related works on nausea and doesn't need to be swallowed to be assimilated, I can't see an convincing argument not to use it.

Get well soon.

Roberta X said...

Stranger: sounds as if it was self-limiting. :)

DaddyBear said...

Hope you feel better! Better a little loopy than puking!

LabRat said...

Well Marinol isn't an opiate. I really can't stand hippies, but if it or something related works on nausea and doesn't need to be swallowed to be assimilated, I can't see an convincing argument not to use it.

This is one of the things that gets me properly knotted up and frothy when it comes to the medical marijuana debate; one side is "DEVIL WEED" (meanwhile many things *over the counter* are less innocuous- see dextromethorphan, and give me some purple drank while you're at it), and the other seems distressingly on the side of "we should be able to get extremely baked anytime, anywhere, for any reason".

Meanwhile, the list of drugs that effectively, consistently, and without alarming side effects will stop nausea and restore appetite is damn short, and it's a hell of a lot more problematic symptom than a cough...

Stranger said...

I second LabRat's motion. The list of effective anti-nausea drugs is very short, and taking one of the best of them off the market because a relative handful had a problem is a problem.

Actually, we had more trouble with chloral hydrate, "Micky Finn," or knockout drops. People would start to take it for cough or insomnia and go to sleep in places like across a railroad track, middle of a busy street, and so on.

The cure for either addiction was 180 to 360 days at the "county farm" loading dump trucks with a shovel, eating well, and getting the need out of the system. Few returned for a second cure.

And I hope that you are feeling better.

Stranger