Quote:
Originally Posted by cindi1965
I am currently on Norco 10mg 325 and my pills went up in price from $72.00 to $99.00 and I cannot afford it. It has been the best pain medicine that I have found. I want to know what I can take without tylenol or motrin in it that would be cheaper....any thoughts. BTW I still have NO insurance and on my second SDDI try. Thanks, love you all!
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Dear Cindi -
Plain old generic oxycodone is pretty cheap. While my insurance covers it, a few of months ago I had to fill a Rx that wasn't cover for some reason - I may have been filling it within 30 days of the last one in anticipation of going out of town or the insurance just wasn't going through due to systems issues on the computer, etc. - but, as I recall, 150 of the 5 mg. oxycodone tablets (short-acting but effective) came to roughly $32. And that's a pure opioid. Free of any acetaminophen (Tylenol).
I was transferred to oxycodone 7 -8 years ago when Vicodin (same thing as Norco) just wasn't cutting it anymore. And it really works. That said, the extended release version Oxycontin is available as either brand (expensive) or generic, and from what I've heard, the time release mechanisms on at least some of the generics are not as good as the brand, which means that you may get an irregular delivery of the drug in your system. Then too, I find that I have more issues with Oxycontin slowing down my GI system than oxycodone, possibly because the oxycodone tablets completely dissolve and enter the blood stream long before they reach the opioid receptors in the gut.
For reasons I don't know, hydrocodone - the active ingredient in Norco - is available (at least at the present) only in combination with other ingredients, such as acetaminophen.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/d...s/a601006.html
I hope this is useful. The principle issue may be in getting your doctor to move you to a somewhat stronger [read: effective] medication, may be (from where I sit) largely regional, depending upon how narco-phobic your part of the country is. And in West Virginia, that may well be an issue: sadly with some reason.
Finally, it bears noting that for those who need a
very strong pain medication, Dilaudid (hydromorphone) was first introduced in 1926 and went generic many years ago. That said, it is considered to be a powerful narcotic, and will in general only be prescribed on an out-patient basis to patients with non-malignant chronic pain in the more "liberal" parts of the country.
I hope this is useful.
Mike