How Addiction Happens

Question by Ken: Can you replace Hydrocodone with Ibuprofen?
I recently got my wisdom teeth removed and I got a prescription for pain killers and an infection prevention pill. I quickly crashed after at home and my mom got the prescriptions.

She replaced the hydrocodones that were supposed to be used for pain killers with ibuprofen. Is this safer? I’ve heard that hydrocodone is addictive, but is it really better this way?

The dosage is 1 pill every four hours for the hydrocodones compared to the three pills of ibuprofen every four hours.

Best answer:

Answer by oldgoat
Its not really a matter of safety. You doctor prescribed you a drug and directions with which to take it. So your doctor figured your pain might be that severe. If a normal dose of ibuprofen is enough for the pain, fine, no harm done. If she exceeds the normal dose of ibuprofen to control your pain there is a huge problem and she’s doing something dangerous. Read the label instruction on the ibuprofen as it makes a difference how many milligrams the pill is. Usually they are 200mg ibuprofen and the suggest 2 every 4 hours, but the bottle label will tell the tale. Now you can take a higher ibuprofen dose that is usually suggested on the bottle but that’s usually under a doctors supervision or advice only.

I’d be concerned that if she intended to give you ibuprofen anyhow,, why did she bother to fill the prescription for the hydrocodone drug? I can afford to wonder if Mom’s got a bit of a drug issue. You can’t. I don’t expect that to win me any points, but it’s something you need to consider. You know your mom. If it’s not that she’s over reacting and needs to get some facts.

There’s a lot of misinformation about hydrocodone drugs where they make it sound like its made by demons in hell. First off all hydrocodone medications in the US are either mostly made of Tylenol or ibuprofen). If you take enough to abuse the small amount of narcotic in them, you end up doing irreparable liver damage, just like with being an alcoholic only more often serious. Most cases of liver failure (51% last survey) is caused from poisoning by Tylenol and similar drugs and a lot of it is from those trying to abuse hydrocodone drugs.. So yes hydrocodone drugs are bad for you but not necessarily for the reasons most people think.

And yes hydrocodone is addictive, but it takes a couple weeks of pretty solid use for a physical dependence to show up, and even that’s not addiction if you stop taking them and were following label directions.. There are many drugs that should be tapered off of if you have been taking them awhile, but with these kinds of drugs, someone screams “addiction” and there is no tapering off, consequently no stopping without feeling physically ill. In some cases that means never stopping and an addict is born.

So the bottom line in your case (as in all cases with these drugs) is how’s your pain? Mom’s going a little overboard (maybe. Again check the label) with the ibuprofen. Certainly if you feel another ibuprofen would help, the wiser course is to go to the prescription drug. Additionally there’s the matter of these drugs causing excessive bleeding to consider, so the lower the dose of Tylenol or Ibuprofen, the better the bleeding will be controlled

That’s about it. Stay with the infection pill (they help pain more than anything if you have a dental infection) and have a serious talk with mom if the pain is getting intense. This info I gave you can be found anyplace on the net, but the dentist is the best reason. Perhaps he had some bleeding concerns. He wouldn’t have prescribed it if he didn’t think it might be needed and if it’s not needed, good deal. Hope you had all 4 at once. One time is plenty. Feel better soon.

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