Some people have all the luck.
A student at The University of Memphis, John, 25, was one of those people. With a busy life, a promising career and a good relationship with his girlfriend, he had it made. That is, until last year.
John, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, worked as a senior account executive at a local data processing company. He attended evening classes at The U of M, working towards a degree in international business.
He only had one problem.
His left knee constantly ached from a high school baseball injury, and he began seeing a doctor for the pain in August 2001. The doctor took his time analyzing John’s injury and prescribed what was then a new painkiller - OxyContin - manufactured by Purdue Pharma, L.P.
The painkiller is an opioid, like Percocet. It is derived from opium, a powerful narcotic. The difference is that the drug works on a time-release mechanism that allows patients to take it less often than other painkillers.
Although John took the pills correctly, OxyContin has been abused in the last two years by some people now addicted to its effects. When crushed and eaten, injected or snorted, the time-release mechanism is destroyed, causing a high much like that produced by heroin.
Yet drug abusers are not the only ones that have become addicted to the drug. People prescribed the medication can become addicted, too. The manufacturer suggests that only people with chronic pain or cancer take OxyContin.
John’s doctor initially prescribed OxyContin at 20 milligrams (mgs), three times daily.
“At first, the medicine made me sick,” John said. “But my doctor told me to just keep taking it. After a while I didn’t get sick from it anymore.”
After two months, the doctor increased the dosage to 40 mgs, three times daily.
“After two months of 120 mgs a day, the OxyContin representative must have told my doctor about the time-release mechanism, and he cut me back to 40 mgs twice a day,” John said.
He stayed on 80 mgs for the next seven months, happy with the results of the medication. He had no idea what was happening to him, that his body was beginning to depend on the OxyContin for the release of endorphins that enabled him to function.
John saw his doctor once a month in order to get his prescriptions written for OxyContin, which he said the doctor could not call in to the pharmacy.
Everything was fine until July, when John’s doctor was out of his office for a week. Then two weeks, then a month, then two months.
While the doctor was out of the office on unexplained business, John came in for his monthly appointment. The nurses told him the doctor was not there, but that they could give him a prescription for Percocet.
John immediately went to have the prescription filled, but the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription.
“They told me his license had been suspended,” John said. “I had to go to Super D to get it filled.”
When John began to take the new dosage of 10 mgs, three times daily, he realized he had a problem.
“The decreased amount made me sick,” John said. “I had headaches and was shaking. I went to the hospital, and they told me I was going through withdrawal.”
John then saw a story on the television program 48 Hours that focused on “rapid detox” centers, medical facilities for people with serious addictions to painkillers, opiates and other drugs. These centers use a controversial method in which the patient is placed under an anesthetic and their body is flushed of the drug. The patient undergoes most of the more difficult time of withdrawal while unconscious, over the span of a couple of hours, instead of several weeks.
After researching rapid detox centers, John found the Addiction Recovery Institute in New York City most affordable. The price tag was $5,600 for the procedure, not including airfare, accommodations and transportation.
John said a center in Chicago would have cost him $8,000, and the Los Angeles rapid detox would have cost $10,000. Unfortunately, none of these treatments were covered by John’s health insurance, which would normally cover a 28-day detox program.
“I had to pay $2,000 down, then fax them the results of my physical exam, and then pay the rest before I went,” John said.
The procedure took place Sept. 11.
Luckily, he said, he had been prescribed enough Percocet to last the month before the procedure. He took the last one the morning he began the procedure.
“I don’t remember anything from then until about three or four days later,” John said.
The doctors replaced the drugs in John’s body with Naltrexone, an opiate blocker. It told his brain that it had received the drug and caused it to release the endorphins needed for his body to function.
However, the effects of withdrawal were not completed with the procedure. John went home with anti-depressants, sleeping aids, anxiety medications, muscle relaxers and what he called, “every vitamin on the planet.”
“You go through two withdrawals,” John said. “One while under the anesthesia, and the rest while you are awake.”
John was depressed, had no appetite, and could not sleep for about a week.
“But it would have taken much longer if I had gone through a regular detox,” John said.
The story would have already had a happy ending, but John developed a bacterial infection soon after coming home and is still waiting for a doctor’s approval before returning to work. Despite his ordeal, he is still enrolled in classes at The U of M.
“I am not experiencing any withdrawal symptoms, though, so I know it worked,” John said.
Currently, a law firm in Los Angeles is filing a suit on his behalf. The suit will not charge his physician, but Purdue Pharma. The process could be lengthy, but the financial recovery may be considerable if he wins the case, his attorneys have told him.
“I think that they’ve marketed OxyContin completely wrong,” John said. “It shouldn’t be prescribed to people like me, that really don’t need medicine that strong.”
