Posted by
cnbj on July 03, 2000 at 22:59:17:
In Reply to: Re: girlfriend addicted to lortab posted by Karen on July 03, 2000 at 22:28:18:
: I am very familiar with Lortab. What reason is your girlfriend giving her doctor that he is prescribing it. Is she actually in any pain for any condition? It's very hard to get off of pain medication once you're addicted to it. Unless she wants to stop, nothing you say will affect her. I do believe she just can't stop. Yes, you can go "cold turkey", however, it's too difficult with the withdrawal symptoms. If you see her on a daily basis, my advice to you is this: She cannot be in control by having the bottle of pills in her possession. First of all, how many pills does she have to take in a day? Figuratively speaking, say she takes 8 pills a day......you would have to have the whole prescription in your possession only. She can get off of them on a tapering down regimen. But you would have to give her x amount each day and no more. It would take about a month, but she can get off of them if you would like to help her out in this way. But most importantly, she would have to go along with you and if she really loves you and doesn't want to lose you, she just might listen to you. I think I can be of further help to both of you but let me know if she actually does have pain, for what condition, how many pills is she now taking on a daily basis, and does she have any stress in her life.
First I want to say thanks for taking the time to respond. I really didn't think anyone would respond. At any rate, let me give you a bit of the details. One year ago, on July 4th, she fell thru a glass door at our previous apartment(which actually answers your other question, we live together). She had to have surgery and lost the use of her left hand which pretty much left her disabled as she is a left handed person. Well she has regained some use of her left hand and has even begun working again, about 4 months ago. She has told me that she has no pain other than the side effects of the medicine, i.e mornings are rough on her until she gets a couple of pills in her system, nights are tough as she has irregular sleeping habits and often only gets a few hours of sleep in. Currently she is taking 10-12 pills a day and as for her doctor either he just doesn't care or he is the most naive person in the world. I have no idea what she is telling him to get the pills and two weeks ago she had an appointment with him where he gave her a prescription for 100 lortab 10's with 2 refills on the prescription, as her next appointment is in 3 months. Since she got that prescription she has maybe 20 pills left...she still had some from the last prescription he had wrote her. I'm at the end of my rope here. Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated as I do love her and I believes she loves me but these pills are, well if you are familliar with them you know what they are doing. In closing I would be more than willing to help her wean herself off of the things but how? Please give me more details on that method as the "col turkey" method, I think is out of the question for her. She has tried that method...only in the absence of pills...and it didn't work. She was in immense pain physically and couldn't even work. I'm here all day on the 4th and 5th please respond
