Fate/me = the anti OTP

[brigdh]

So, how the hell do people become addicted to codeine? I took some yesterday, and it was enough to make me vow it off forever, because while pain might suck, at least with it I'm capable of holding a thought for sentence and walking straight. The random dry-heaving, which I blame on the painkillers, also didn't help. I can't imagine anyone takes it for fun.

All of which is my long way of saying that I spent most of yesterday in the emergency room, because it's just not finals week if I don't develop multiple debilitating conditions. Currently it's an abscess on my upper thigh that had gotten infected to the point where it hurt to walk. I'd say more, but it's incredibly disgusting, and I'm sure no one wants details.

Between this and the prescription they gave me last week for my killer virus/laryngitis, I'm on three different kinds of drugs (plus the codeine, but I'm refusing to take that unless it becomes imperative), and am definitely feeling the effects. Which adds up wonderfully for the paper I have due today at five, which not only have I not started, but I haven't even finished the research for yet. I was supposed to do it yesterday, but again: emergency room and high off my ass. I think I'm going to be asking the professor for an extension.

And how are all of you?

Comments

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

*Hugs you*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Get. An. Extension. I never did, and you don't even want to know what happened to me.

I always wonder how people become addicted to drugs, too -- at least in the current sense of the word, which seems to have to do with emotional dependence rather than straightforward physical habituation. I have to believe this is another example of the individuality of human bodies, and that the substances in question work completely differently for the people who fall in love with them.

Yeah, the random dry-heaving is the opiates. You'd think there'd be something you could do for pain that didn't make you wish you were dead, wouldn't you?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh. Have gotten it, so I now have until tomorrow. Or Friday. Or next week, if I feel like it. The professor was really rather unconcerned.

I think you must be right. I'm not fond of getting drunk either, and that certainly seems to be popular enough that people must be getting something out of it that I never have.

You'd think there'd be something you could do for pain that didn't make you wish you were dead, wouldn't you?

Ah, but see, that would make sense.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, I've found that if the problem is sufficiently long-lasting to warrant it, and your doctors will work with you, most of the time you do eventually find something that more or less works. By which I mean, works without making you wish you were dead, which kind of ruins the effect. But they all go for the opiates and synthetic opiates first, because most people respond well to those.

And then there are the rest of us, who have ever-growing lists of substances we have to alert medical people not to come near us with, Or Else.

-- Oh, my point! I did have one: you probably already know all about this, but I still feel I should mention that it can be very helpful to take the blasted codeine, in whatever form they gave it to you (probably something like Tylenol 3, but sometimes they'll dispense it straight), cutting a tablet into little tiny pieces, and taking just a little bit of the prescribed dose, along with a whole lot of ibuprofen or something. A certain amount of the opiate badness, I suspect from long experience, has to do with variations in sensitivity. Sometimes the right, tiny dose will work, and have a nice synergy with your basic ibuprofen or asperin or tylenol, when the prescribed dose just makes you sick. If things get bad, it's worth playing around with -- it's not like you're going to get into trouble by taking too little of the stuff, after all.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a good trick to remember. I highly suspect that part of my reaction to it the first time might have been from an overdose (I very rarely take any painkillers at all; I probably haven't taken even Tylenol in at least six months, if not a year, and I hadn't eaten yet that day when I took the codeine), so that's something I'll need to remember for the next time I try the drug. At the moment, though, I don't really need anything. I think the prescription for such a strong painkiller was just a caution on the doctor's part.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I very rarely take any painkillers at all; I probably haven't taken even Tylenol in at least six months, if not a year, and I hadn't eaten yet that day when I took the codeine

Yup. Overdose.

In that case, should you ever have occasion to try it again I definitely recommend the self-help dosage-reduction trick. It might turn out that the stuff works for you after all. If you get it calibrated right, it can yield a not-unpleasant quasi-erotic languor, in which you could still read an academic article if you had to, but may find thoughts of something like a Bedouin AU more immediately attractive. It still isn't pleasant enough to explain addiction, but it beats hell out of the nausea and the inability to think and the falling over. And it can help with pain, too.

[aluragayle.livejournal.com]

>.< I can totally sympathize with you! *offers hugs and encouragement* And yes! By all means, get an extension - don't make all the nastiness worse by stressing over getting the paper done, and then stressing over how little sense it probably made and what sort of shameful grade you might get.

*been there, done that - could ya tell?*

And the abcess - ewwww. Again, totally sympathize.

In answer to the question there...I refer you back to my retelling of the 'Alura's Amazing Grace' incident in my journal post of yesterday. =P

Aye, two peas in a fucking pod, indeed...

*much love*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh, thanks. Have gotten the extension, which you're right: was very much a good idea.

And hee. I like that post.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Codeine makes me throw up too. If I need painkillers, I inform the doctor that I'm allergic to it, and they give me something else. (Percocet and Darvocet work fine on me and doesn't make me high or fuzzy-minded, but everyone's different.) I would ask the doctor for a new prescription.

Also-- I'm so sorry! You poor thing!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It's alright, really. I'm in the sort of pain where I actually need anything to numb it. It was just such a surprise- codeine seems to be so much the current drug-of-choice for people that I'd expected it to be at least vaguely pleasant.

And thank you!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

My doctor tells me that approximately 25% of the population is mildly allergic to codeine, ie, it doesn't do anything for them other than make them throw up. He was very sympathetic when I explained my problem with it, because he was part of that 25% too.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Extenstion gotten, yay!

...*stares at the icon, gets it, howls with laughter*

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I have no response at all to codeine. Or hydrocodone. No pain reduction, nothing for a cough, nuthin'. It's like taking a vitamin pill.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, that must suck just as much, but in a different way. At least it's nice to know that if it gets bad enough, I can take it.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Apparently I might be an opiate nonreceptor - people who don't have any response to that class of drugs. Someone on my friendslist told me they had a friend who discovered he was that way, unfortunately in combination with a motorcycle accident, a badly broken leg, and a morphine drip.

I'm not entirely sure, though, because when I broke my toe my Vicoprophen worked, and I think Vicoden is an opiate. But it might also have been due to massive quantities of ibuprophen.

I had a friend who was allergic to antihistamines and decongestants. She couldn't take any cold or allergy drugs without breaking out into hives. If she got really really bad, she'd break down and take them and deal with the itching, but it took something close to pneumonia for her to do that.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Allergic to antihistamines! That's got to be nearly the worst medical allergy there is. Allergic to the thing that would stop the reaction: it's like something out of an ironic short story.

[kohakutenshi.livejournal.com]

Codine and any form thereof is addictive to people who find the lack of a clear reality a welcome change. Sometimes life and pain are so bad that the fuzzy disorientation is nice. Like being drunk.

And it's never made me want to throw up. O.O That's strange...

*hugs* Hope you get to feeling better. I have a 4 to 8 page Business Stragety to do by Monday that I haven't even started. :3

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, that explains things, I suppose. I don't much like being drunk either. The only reality-altering drug that doesn't turn me off is pot, and even then I prefer only a little.

And it's never made me want to throw up.

*shrugs* Different people, different reactions. They might possibly have overdosed me on it, too.

Thanks! And good luck on your paper!

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

*pets pets*

Ask for the extension! Only a total jackass would fail to understand. I mean, hello, emergency room. And, yep, it's the painkillers all right. That's the misery cycle of prescription medicine -- pills that make you feel so bad, if you take them you need yet more pills.

Get better, honey.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thank you. And what a perfectly appropriate icon! I love that cartoon.

Yep, extension gotten. And how horrible. I'm glad that I'm not actually in the sort of pain where I truly need any painkillers- I don't know how long I could deal with that cycle.

[wildelamassu.livejournal.com]

I prefer the blurring of codeine to the mindfuck that is morphine, at least--when I had my appendix out, I apparently went into surgery smiling and laughing with the nurses about, you know, the INVASIVE PROCEDURE.

Good luck and feel better. If it helps, you're not alone--I've slept something like two hours in the last three days and have another ten pages due in two more. Ah, edumacation.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Wow. I've never been on morphine, and now I don't think I ever want to be.

Good luck to you too! I don't think I'd still be coherent after that long without sleep.

[cyanei.livejournal.com]

The way people react to drugs is interesting (if not for the person reacting badly). I like codeine, personally; I stay clear-headed, and have no pain. I've had very few negative reactions to narcotics in general, though. Morphine makes me itchy as all hell, but that's about it.

I've had more problems with sedatives. They seem to either not work, or keep me asleep for, like, sixteen hours. It's kind of sad that I'm generally more alert having not slept for three days than I am after ten hours of drug-induced sleep.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It is a neat sort of problem. Every time I've heard codeine mentioned before, the person taking it was very enthusiastic about it; I was surprised to see so many people comment here saying they'd had negative reactions.

[luckygohappy115.livejournal.com]

I know this is a bit late, but I hear ya bout not getting why people pop pills. Never took codeine before, but I was on hydrocodone for herpes (yeah, you wanna talk about gross!!) last spring & all they did was make me too loopy to work, study or do anything! And last summer, I took a box of Coricidin (the then-current drug of choice) & I thought I was gonna die.

Anyway, I hope you're doing better now, hun!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

No worries about being late- I always love comments.

And heh, cool. Good to know I'm not the only one with weird reactions.

I am, thanks!