FDA Panel Votes to Eliminate Vicodin and Percocet

As long as we could still manage pts pain with some form of these medicines with less Tylenol, then thats fine... But if they are proposing the solution to give stronger pain meds right after surgery like morphine, what would the patients go home on? I work on a cardio-surgical med surg floor and I would say that norco and percocet is one of our most dispensed med, right up there with insulin. When they crack your ribs and pull you all apart for open heart---umm I would say thats painful! As for the poster that said they put tylenol in percocet/vicodin/norco to prevent it from being snorted or shot up--I know people who that sure didn't discourage them! At my high school that was a very big unspoken problem-snorting pills. I think more education needs to be done to warn people that mixing pain killers and cough meds etc can cause harmful effects and possibly overdose. I always tell pts when I discharge them to be careful and stick to the 4 to 6 hours b/c the pain pills have tylenol in them, and if taken more frequent they could over dose. Light needs to be shed on the HUGE unspoken problem that we have in this country--ADDICTION. I am sure alot of those ER visits were due to people just being addicted to pain pills and taking too much---ANYONE looked into that??? And as long as rehab is too expensive and the number of addiction centers that are not free are still very hard to come by---we as a nation will never overcome this problem! Why doesn't the government do something about that???? Tighter regulation needs to be put on the monitoring agents that track the narcotics, and the people who come into the hospital with "chest pain" and things like that who just want the pain meds. So, I guess what I am trying to say is--educate people more about how much tylenol is safe, and address the very fastly growing problem this nation has with addiction. Don't make it something shameful and embarassed to have--ITS A DISEASE, just like heart disease, diabetes, etc. Dont make the people suffer who actually have chronic pain and post surgical pain who use the medicines as they are supposed to be used.

There are other combination meds available. A few years ago I threw a kidney stone. After spending some time in the ER where I found toradol worked better than morphine for me, they prepared to discharge me with a script for vicodin. I asked the doc if I could have vicoprofen instead. He said, "Do they make that?" He checked the med book and then wrote the script.

A substitute for percocet could be Combunox (oxy with ibuprofen) or Percodan (oxy with ASA). Instead of Vicodin they could prescribe Vicoprofen (hydrocodone with ibuprofen) or Lortab ASA (hydrocodone with ASA). Some providers may need to be educated about these combinations.

I'd love to see the raw data the FDA panel is reviewing. How many cases involved etoh consumption? How many involved APAP from multiple products? Lots of questions in my mind.

Asprin used a pain killer is just as bad as paracetamol (apap) and it is never prescribed in hospital for paon relief only to treat MI CVA(300 mg stat) and maintaince dose of 75mg od how many otc meds have apsrin in them.
the uk has a limit of 32 tablets of asprin per sale due to asprin od.
why combine meds why not just advise people when to take i oxycontin and apap and/or nsaids.
or hydrocodone isn't licensed in the UK.

as someone with chronic pain, I think the problem will be that these pure narcs are going to be schedule II, instead of schedule III if cut with acetaminophen. That means that I will have to see my MD in the office every time I want a refill. That sounds like nonsense to me.

My sister who has severe chronic pain from an accident had a lap a few years back which went well EXCEPT the doc had aimed the scope at her liver (?) incidentally (?) and saw her liver. It was shrunken, hard, and it was almost the color of cooked chicken instead of dark burgundy as it should be. She takes no alcohol at all, this is something called NASH.

Yes liver damage from APAP in her meds, and now she needs a transplant. I am too old to be a donor they say. Her daughter and son don't match and her spouse has several lesions of unknown cause in his liver. Yes APAP/tylenol/paracetamol or whatever is most definitely dangerous and I might lose a beloved sister at age 55.

I take oxycodone 10/325 6 times a day for chronic back pain. Every two months I am given a blood and urine test to check my liver enzymes and to make sure that I am not taking more than I am suppose to.I never know when he will give me this test also. Do not all pain management MD's follow this protocol. And as far as replacing with Ibroprofen some of us can not take this due to GI problems. But hopefully they will come to a solution. Also My MD warned me about taking othe meds that may contain Apap with this medication and the consequences that could occur.

Maybe so, but if my memory serves me right, doesn't Tylenol when paired with hydrocodone or oxycodone have a synergistic effect? If you give a patient just hydrocodone or just oxycodone but give it in maybe a slightly larger dose than a hydrocodone/acetaminophen or oxycodone/acetaminophen preparation, THEN have your patient take OTC Tylenol on top of that...couldn't that be dangerous?

Personally I think Micheal Jackson's death suddenly decided the FDA to pull the plug on Vicodin & Percocet, since he was supposedly "addicted to painkillers" and "possibly overdosed" (but of course we won't know until the toxicology reports come in).

Anyway, I think it is due to a lack of education - both medical professionals and the patients are at fault. Doctors and nurses should warn patients taking Vicodin and Percocet that both preparations contain Tylenol and should be cautioned taking additional OTC Tylenol (or none at all!) And if you look in the pamphlets for Vicodin and Percocet, they say to NOT take them with Tylenol - that right there is the patient's fault.

This week at clinical my patient's husband was telling me that the FDA was going to pull a "really powerful pain reliever because people keep overdosing on it." I asked him what it was and he had the name written down on a piece of a paper. It read: "acetaminophen." I chuckled and told him it was Tylenol, and he said "maybe I wrote it down wrong or something...it's acetaminophen." Then I told him how drugs generally have a brand name and generic name and that acetaminophen is the SAME THING as Tylenol and that Tylenol is the leading cause of acute liver failure and some drugs (like Vicodin and Percocet) contain acetaminophen in them. Then he got all worried asking if the morphine IVP that I gave to his wife earlier had any of this "acetaminophen" in it - same with the Zosyn IVPB.

Bottom line...patients need more education.

Yes, they need to know the dangers of acetaminophen. I've seen a 12 yr old female who took too much tylenol for a toothache. She presented in the ER 3 days later. AST /ALT were about 5500/7200. Maybe we need a campaign to tell that public that all drugs, even OTC can be dangerous/deadly if misused.

All they need to do is drop the acetaminophen out of the hydrocodone and oxycodone. Newscastst that I've heard have stated exactly this. I guess scary headlines sell, as opposed to headlines that just inform the public. What a bunch of unnecessary upset for all of us.