Before I get nasty emails let me say that I know what living with pain is. I was in a bad car accident 4 years ago and my back is still messed up and I live with pain every day. No I don’t take any medication for it, I choose to live with it instead of masking it. But I’m not here to blast people who have to take it as I know pain afflicts people differently and some people have to take it in order to function.

As my two previous posts, I’m still suffering from a really sore ankle and went to see the doctor. The doctor prescribed me Lortab 7.5/500. I had no idea what the hey it was, Teal said it was good for short term pain management. Instead of looking it up on the internet I took one the night I filled the script. I had no side effects and went to bed feeling pretty good. The next morning I woke up took another as my ankle started to really bother me. There was no immediate effects but by the time I got to work I wasn’t feeling all there. Soon I was feeling nausea and went to the bathroom as I thought I was going to vomit when all of sudden I started feeling faint and almost passed out just as I got to the toilet. Luckily controlled breathing allowed me to regain my composure enough to splash some cold water on my face (from the sink not the toilet) and wet a paper towel and put it on my neck.

I made it back to my desk when things started to really go down hill. I started to go into a euphoric state. Then came the sensitivity to the light which really started to bother me as I was trying to get some work done but couldn’t. After a panic call to Teal, we were hoping that the half-life of one pill would be 3 hours so I went to my car to get some rest. After 30 minutes I started to feel better so I went back to my desk and tried to get some more work done.

Around 12:45pm almost 4 1/2 hours after I took the pill, everything started to come back but stronger so I managed to stumble to my car where I slept for an hour. After waking up I went back inside where not only was I still in this euphoric state with light sensitivity but now I had a major headache and was extremely hot. At that point I need to go home. Luckily my boss Jeff and co worker Jerome knew better than to let me drive myself so Chris took me home instead. It was a good thing he did cause I think I blacked out a bit cause we were further down the road than I remembered.

Once I got home I slept till about 6:10pm. I felt better but after an hour being awake I needed to sleep again. I finally ended up back in bed at 9pm. Still this morning I have a slight headache but I also feel dizzy. This is more than 24 hours after taking that stupid pill.

So what is Lortab or hydrocodone, it’s a narcotic pain reliever with some Acetaminophen added to it. More information can be found here www.drugs.com. Fortunately I mostly had the less serious side effects but after this experience I’ll make sure I research everything first but mostly I’m going to just suck it up and not take anything. The risks and side effects are not worth it. Also researching I found others having the same and some with more severe side effects. As I said the side effects are not worth it. Oh and yes the pain in my ankle was gone while I was drugged up but now it’s back.