(541)386-9500 Vicodin is a schedule II on October 6th, 2014 Important status update about refills.
Good morning and welcome to ub rur tv i’m your host brad harmon and today my guest is dr. trey burger with columbia pain management in hood river in hood river oregon good morning dr. richard welcome to the program good morning brad thank you so much for joining us now dr. riegert over the past few weeks you’ve been talking a little bit out the changes in vicodin and
How it’s becoming a schedule to substance i hear there’s been an update in the in the loboc and you tell us a little bit about its current status that’s pretty question brad you know we know now that vikings going to be in the same category as oxycontin and methadone and fentanyl so we’ve recognized that there’s a danger significant danger of abuse and diversion
Um we had some concerns about whether people would be able to get the refills if they had a prescription written in july 46 refills would they be able to get those after october sixth which is the date the medicine becomes a schedule too we’ve had guidance that those refills will be valid until april eighth of 2015 so if you have a script that was written before
October six with extra refills they will be refillable out through april eighth 2015 now there are pharmacy chains that may not honor that um this is just the guidance that we have from the federal government the dea the regulators it’s recognized that some of the computer systems may not be able to parse the scripts into the tube clumps so it’s conceivable that
Even though it’s possible it may not be possible for you so the other part of this was communication between the patient the physician in the pharmacist is critical so you can have access to your medicine after october sixth so that’s actually good news for those people that have been using vicodin for long-term chronic pain because now they don’t have to have
An immediate decision made by october six they have some time to make some choices that’s correct absolutely that’s good news so dr. rigor if someone has been using vicodin for long-term pain management and because of the changes in the law they want to make some changes in the way they’re treating their pain what kind of choice do they have if they no longer want
To use vicodin is their main source of pain management yeah we we talked a little bit about that earlier now’s a good time to kind of sit back and think and maybe talk to your family your friends you know has this medicine really done what it was supposed to do because this is a recognition that there’s extra risk with hydrocodone containing products and you know
That concludes norco and all the other different flavors of vicodin so if the medicine isn’t right for you it’s a good time to talk to your provider about what to do um for the folks that maybe aren’t able to get that guidance i would like to point out just remind everybody what withdrawal looks like because sometimes actually fairly frequently we have people come
Into clinic who said they stopped through medicine and they had a really bad cold and i feel horrible for two weeks and they don’t recognize that as withdrawal so if you stop your medicine your hydrocodone you’re going to have some symptoms you’re going to have some runny nose some yawning some nausea some tremors you can have problems sleeping you’re going to
Feel like you have the flu your back is going to hurt you’re going to have some depression and if you’ve been taking a lot of vicodin for a long time those symptoms can go on for quite a while you can have acute withdrawal where you’re really miserable for a few days and you can have post-acute withdrawal where you just kind of feel blah that can go on for weeks
And for some people for months so your option is to wean yourself off the medicine it would be better to have help there are some things that you can do on your own the first thing is to recognize the symptoms and recognize they will get better every day in every week that’s really the first thing some people feel like they’re going to feel that way forever and
That’s really a bad feeling and if they understand itself limited that helps them get through it things like lomotil can help with your gi upset benadryl can help you sleep there’s a lot of other tools out there for the pain part there’s not a ton of other tools out there for withdrawal apart so you’re willing to work with your provider there are some prescription
Medicines that can help people sleep lift the mood hope people get through it on we try to avoid tranquilizers because then people tend to get dependent on those but your doctor or mid level provider can help you over the counter you’ve got your little motel and your benadryl but think about it i’ll think about where you want to go with your medicine recognize if
You stop rapidly you’re going to have some symptoms and seek out help if at all possible so it sounds like the da’s decided that this is a very important subject that they needed to have a discussion about so if you’ve been on that treatment it’s time for you to have that important discussion with your provider and see if it’s really the best source of management
For you yeah great time for deep breath and a reexamination excellent well dr. weir we very much appreciate your counsel advice on the program today and we appreciate you as viewers tuning into the broadcast we hope that we’ll see you again soon on another show
Transcribed from video
Vicodin – Hydrocodone: Status Update on Vicodin Schedule II on October 6th, 2014 By Trey RigertliveBroadcastDetails{isLiveNowfalsestartTimestamp2014-09-22T140000+0000endTimestamp2014-09-22T140459+0000}
