As a former drinker who got drunk every night after work for about 10 years, I used to say it was a good thing I never tried heroin, because I would have loved it. Now, as a non-drinker for two decades and having used Percocet a few times post-op, I can confidently say I was wrong about that.
I hate taking Percocet. It does help me fall asleep when I have acute pain that keeps me awake. But, it makes it impossible for me to wake-up the next day. I was prescribed Percocet after my first hernia surgery. I took it as prescribed and as instructed by my nurse to “stay ahead of the pain”. After two days, I could barely get of the sofa. My eyes were gummy. I was sleeping at least 12 hours a day. And I had no oomph. When my nurse called me on day 3 to see how I was doing I told her the pain was manageable but the Percocet was wiping me out. She said, “Oh. Well then don’t take it unless the pain gets really bad. You can just take Tylenol and Advil.”
A year later, when I had hernia surgery to repair the other side (just my bad luck), I still had the Percocet left over from my first surgery. I told the doctor not to bother writing me a prescription for more. My second surgery wasn’t as painful as the first. Advil and Tylenol worked fine for me.
But last night, when an abscess grew next to my infected, cracked molar I was in agony. Advil and Tylenol didn’t help. So I broke down and took 1/2 a percocet.
I woke up 10 hours later. The abscess had drained in the night. I slept deeply. And it took me two hours to get out of bed. I wanted to wake up, but I just couldn’t get moving. Two hours of waking occasionally thinking, I should get up. Then nodding back off to sleep.
Yuck.
When I finally work up, I felt pretty good. In addition to the abscess draining, the pain in my mouth had dropped from a 10 to a reasonable 2 or 3 – a dull ache. I also noticed that all my usually aches, pains and tweaks like my ankle, knee and shoulder were gone. Poof. My body felt like I was 20 years younger. That feeling was great. I can understand the appeal of nagging chronic pain being gone.
But, even so, the sluggishness side effect would have turned me off of recreational opioids.
Speed, I think would be entirely different. I am a caffeine junkie. I take an allergy pill with a decongestant that makes me speedy. I think I was very fortunate that I never tried cocaine or meth.
I would have loved it.