Skyla Smith, 31, started off taking one to two Oxycontin pills a day. She was having fun ... until she lost control.
“They found me lying on the sidewalk passed out,” said the Chico State student. “I remember waking up in the hospital and there was all these doctors around me.... They told me that I had overdosed and that they found a shit-ton of Oxy in my system.”
At the time of her overdose, Smith was usually taking three to four pills in a sitting. By the end of that day, it would be about 20.
“I wasn’t purposely trying to kill myself. I was just having fun,” Smith said. “It’s so easy to lose control.”
Smith’s addiction to opioids lasted two years.
Some of the reasons many become dependent on Oxycontin is because the drug treats pain but also causes euphoria. It triggers the person’s body to seek the high it gets from the euphoria, which is the same way heroin works.
Oxycontin, generic name for Oxycodone, is an opioid pain medication. It is use to treat moderate to severe pain that is expected to last for an extended time, according to Drugs.com.
Once people build up a tolerance for the opioid, their dosage increases. That is where the misuse comes in.
The National Drug Institute reported in June that 80 percent of people who use heroin first misused prescription opioids.
Studies show that when the use of prescribed opioids goes up, the use of heroin goes down, and when the use of heroin goes up, opioid use goes down -- like a seesaw.
But the real key player is money. The cost of the prescribed opioids determines whether a buyer is better off saving a few dollars and buying street heroin instead.
A chart by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows a correlation between opioid use and heroin.
Joni Meyer, a Chico State professor who teaches the course Drugs in Our Society, believes the opioid problem is permanent.
“People make billions of dollars at the cost of doses,” Meyer said. “It won’t end.”
The start of the problem was in 1996, when the FDA first approved Oxycontin for time-release pain relief to the market. The approval of the drug came shortly after a single study was conducted.
“That was the beginning of the crisis,” Meyer said. “They told the FDA, based on one study, that (opioids) were not addictive.”
The drug were promoted as not addictive due to its time-release use and that overdosing was not possible, but that was false, she said.
Photo Credit: Oxycodone.us
A 2012 study conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services reported that prescription opioids accounted for more than half of the 41,000 deaths in the U.S. attributed to drug overdoses.
In California, deaths involving opioid prescribed medication have increased by 16.5 percent since 2006. Prescriptions for opioids such as hydrocodone and oxycodone went from 76 million in 1991 to 207 million in 2013.
Dr. James Moore, who works in the Enloe Medical Center emergency room, reported in October that “per capita, every resident in Butte County receives twice as many prescriptions as in the rest of the country.”
Physicians are prescribing these painkillers more and more. Extensive marketing could be one reason, Meyer said.
In California, deaths involving opioid prescribed medication have increased by 16.5 percent since 2006. Prescriptions for opioids such as hydrocodone and oxycodone went from 76 million in 1991 to 207 million in 2013.
Dr. James Moore, who works in the Enloe Medical Center emergency room, reported in October that “per capita, every resident in Butte County receives twice as many prescriptions as in the rest of the country.”
Physicians are prescribing these painkillers more and more. Extensive marketing could be one reason, Meyer said.
When consumers see a commercial about a drug, they’re more likely to request that drug from their physician because they feel their symptoms match what the drug is intended to relieve, she said.
Meyer said she believes the root of both the use of opioids and heroin begins with the physicians who are prescribing the opioids.
After Smith’s overdose, she is more cautious with prescribed medication. Before a doctor prescribes her any type of medication, she let’s them know what she would not want to be prescribed.
“Now, I won’t take any opioids from doctors,” Smith said.
After her overdose, Smith realized her addiction got out of hand and it needed to stop.
“That was the moment for me,” Smith said. “I locked myself in my room and dealt with the withdrawals myself."
Coming off opioids was the worst experience for Smith.
“It’s like the worst flu of your life,” Smith said. “I’ve done molly, coke, ecstasy, but Oxy was the worst.”
-- By Julie Ortega
Photo Credit: Wiki Pages. Tablets of Oxycodone.