Hydromorphone vs oxycodone

I recently am off my mental health meds basically because I had a surgery and forgot to take them. I’m very lucky that it’s been two weeks and I haven’t felt any side effects except actually maybe a bit of depersonalization… I’ve been mostly on (and sometimes off) meds for 33 years. Holy crap. I’m 42 now. I’m feeling okay for now but want to be realistic and know that I may need treatment, again. (ADHD, bipolar, depression, anxiety, OCD) I would like to avoid pills if possible and try only ketamine (or maybe mushrooms). I’ve done on clinic ketamine treatments in the past (the shot type) and I had incredible results for my mood with them that lasted 1-3 months, each. The experiences were amazing and very intense. I know the Yale study recommends twice a week for three weeks for most efficacy however, the experiences were so conscious bending (which I like but also… and maybe I would do the one where you have therapy after- this was just the treatment) I don’t think I can experience so many psychedelic parties in my head within such a short amount of time. I will consider it and might- but was wondering how the at home treatments compare? I imagine the “trips” are less intense because of the delivery of the meds and I can’t imagine the govt letting me trip balls in my own home as a medical treatment, but hey- times are changing. Has anyone tried both or know how the experience as effectiveness might compare?
EDIT: My doctor knows I’m off the meds. We had an appointment. I had my tonsils removed and swallowing anything was very painful and I was on oxycodone and didn’t make a plan to remember to take my meds and my mom didn’t remind me. Shit happens. I’m okay. I’m taking this as an opportunity to explore other routes for treatment since I’m already off them. My bipolar might be misdiagnosed. I don’t have hypo manias. I could be bipolar 2 but symptoms overlap from all of these diagnoses so it’s hard to know what’s what sometimes. Since I’ve been on meds for 33 years (on and off but 80 percent on) this is a good opportunity for me. Just wondering about the actual psychedelic experience intensity of having in home treatments vs in clinic.
Thank you!!

I am in a unique situation in which I have severe back issues and a MRI to prove it. I have spoken to a few surgeons and we have determined I am not a candidate for surgery, so I have chosen the pain, management route. My doctor is really cool and understanding and will pretty much prescribe me any opioid/opiate to deal with my pain. I am currently on 20mg instant release oxycodone 4 times a day.
My doc had also mentioned possibly switching opioids month-to-month, so I don’t gain as much of a tolerance. So for example, one month I take oxy, the next I take methadone in equivalent dosages
What do you think I should ask my doctor for? Like I said he is very open. I was thinking I could have him cut me down to 40mg oxy and also put me on something like hydromorphone or methadone to take alongside the oxy for further pain relief.

FINAL EDIT: He was given 7 years and a 6 year driving ban. the crown was seeking 7.5, the judge explained all the factors and legal things that constrained her from giving him a higher sentence, but that this was one of the higher sentences than other cases like it. and she acknowledged that no amount of time would be enough. it was tough, but at least he will serve some time for what he did. thank you everyone who has commented
Hello, a man drove while impaired and killed 2 friends of mine 2 years ago. today and tomorrow we are in court for the sentencing.
He waived his right to a jury and is being charged with two counts of dangerous operation causing death, one count of dangerous operation causing bodily harm, and one count of refusing a blood sample.
the crown is going for 7-10 years, so my question is, can the judge over rule that sentencing length and give him 25 to life? Dangerous operation causing death holds a max sentence of 25 to life, but can a judge make the decision to go against how many years the crown is going for and give him more time?
Thank you
Edit: I should have added more information about his past offences and the facts of the case. that is my mistake. he has prior convictions for violent and non-violent offences, has been to jail before, and was actually out on bail at the time of the crash for a prior violent offence. he was under the influence of alcohol, Tylenol 3s (with codeine), non-prescribed doses of hydromorphone and oxycodone as well as he snorted fentanyl while driving. he pulled over before continuing to drive before he hit them and refused to blow at the scene. he was going around 197km when he killed them. he initially pled not guilty but later changed his plea to guilty.
thank you for all your comments so far. we are hoping the judge sets a precedent with this case and gives him the maximum penalty. today we read victim impact statements and 70 were read in court, more than 80 were submitted.

I’m asking for a friend - I found this per Department of transportation’s official government website:
“The DOT testing at HHS-certified laboratories is a 5-panel drug test regimen. As of January 1, 2018, the ‘Opiates’ category was renamed ‘Opioids’:
Marijuana (THC) Cocaine Amphetamines Opioids Phencyclidine (PCP) Under ‘Opioids’, previously ‘Opiates’, DOT testing will continue to include confirmatory testing, when appropriate, for Codeine, Morphine, and 6-AM (heroin). We added initial and confirmatory testing for the semi-synthetic opioids Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone, Oxycodone, and Oxymorphone to this Opioids group. Some brand names for the semi-synthetic opioids include OxyContin®, Percodan®, Percocet®, Vicodin®, Lortab®, Norco®, Dilaudid®, Exalgo®.”
All that in short to ask, does kratom fall under one of these or qualify as any of these? Specifically the Opioids part? I know Mitragynine/7-HO-Mitragynine is molecularly different than all the other opioids.
Has anyone been tested with a 5-panel drug test who uses kratom? Have you ever had a false positive for any other opioid from using kratom?
Thanks in advance for any info 🙏

I used to have great results with Oxycodone, which I take at a very small dosage of (5mg) for pain after my treatments.
But recently, Oxycodone has been making me feel really cruddy. Like the pain goes away for a couple hours, but from the time I take it, I am extremely groggy… and moody to the point I almost feel depressed when I take it.
So I just asked my doctor if we can switch over to Hydrocodone (10mg) instead. She said it lasts longer and doesn’t cause so much moodiness.
Typically I hear that people prefer Oxycodone for pain relief because it’s more potent and so it helps them a lot better.
I am curious if you guys experience these same side effects? If it weren’t for the moodiness and sadness I get… It would work just fine! But I can’t stand that feeling!!
Note: I have chronic pain from my autoimmune disease, however, I only take pain medication because of the horrible side effects from my biologic treatments (so they are as needed only)

I am not a healthy person. I've been very sick for a very long time.The first proper diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis I ever received wasn't until December 2016 but I had been suffering from what I would later find out to be what are called pancreatic flare ups. The first occurance I can recall of getting sick was on my 20th birthday in 2002. What I initially thought was just a really bad hangover was in fact the start of a 19 year battle with my pancreas. It typically starts with severe nausea and vomiting. We aren't talking about regular nausea and vomiting, I'm talking about vomiting every 10-15 minutes for what would sometimes be a single day to eventually lasting as long as up to a month. This would also be accompanied by severe abdominal pain in the upper left quadrant of my abdomen that on good days feels like someone is taking a crochette needle, hooking onto my pancreas and pulling it out of a tiny hole in my back, to where on the worst days it feels like someone is taking my pancreas and trying to wring it out like a wet rag. When I am in a flare up the latter is usually the deciding factor on whether or not I get myself to a hospital. So understand that over the last 19 years I have been to emergency rooms and have been admitted to the hospital no less than 50 times, i'm not 100% on that number but i'm definitely low balling that number because if I only go to the hospital twice in a year I consider that to be a VERY good year to there have been years when i'm going to the hospital every other month. Given all these things I have grown to know what works and what does not when it comes to treatment of my disease. There is no apparent cause or none have been found since my official diagnosis in 2016 and treatment is relegated to simply managing the symptoms i.e. pain management. The most effective treatment is as follows. Administrations of IV pain medication hydromorphone also known as Dilaudid 1.5mg every 3 hours, administration of IV nausea and vomiting medication Zofran every 6 hours as needed and constant fluid saline IV bags while NPO (nothing by mouth) no food, no water, no anything for the duration of the symptoms. If symptoms last for more than 1 week TPN (total parental nutrition) is administered. TPN is a nutrient-complete solution administered directly into veins via a central IV line and continued until I can start eating and drinking again, very slowly and gradually starting with water and chicken or beef broth and slowly advancing my diet from there. This can at times go on for several weeks, my longest flareup lasting approximately 3 weeks. Fast forward to 2019 I had been getting sick a lot more often, every couple of months and was going to the hospital all the time so I had to quit my job of 12 years to focus on my health. This is the lowest point in my entire life. I had no income and was too sick to work, if not for the pandemic and me not having to pay rent for that year I would have been not only very sick but also very homeless. I had applied several times for disability and after finally enlisting some legal assistance was finally able to be approved for a whopping $1547 a month. I have worked and paid taxes and into disability for almost 25 years but at least its something and i;m able to not be homeless so I guess i'm kinda lucky. My life is very very hard and it takes everything in me every single fucking day to not just end my miserable fucking life. I also do this alone as I cannot think to burden someone with all my shit. Nonetheless I am here, writing this letter with the hope that others who share a similar fate don't have to suffer from the embarrassment, shame, pain, and fear that I was made to feel yesterday and still feel very deeply as I write this now. Starting early Christmas morning 2023 I woke up to vomiting on myself and subsequently falling into another flareup. I do not like going to the hospital because now i'm made to feel bad because I have to ask for pain medications and with all the over correction that has been done in relation to the opioid epidemic, it is very hard to now get the proper treatment I require. Emergency rooms now no longer administer IV Dilaudid to patients and are relegated to administering IV morphine as a replacement which for me is completely ineffective in treating my pain and am forced to suffer for many hours until the decision is finally made to admit me, only then do I usually get the Dilaudid I require. So for the last 4 months I have been having flareups every month but have not gone to the hospital for these reasons. This week I had another flare and i'm almost out of the oxycodone I have left which I use to manage my everyday pain, not for breakthrough pain relief as I need during these events. Another treatment my Dr.s and i have found are Celiac Plexus nerve blocks which dampense the pain impulse I receive through that nerve which I have scheduled for this Friday at UCI medical center's GI department. I received a call from an intake nurse to answer questions prior to my procedure on Friday. I was clearly in distress because the nurse asked me if I had Dilaudid for breakthrough pain and I said no, to which her response was "If it gets too bad, please come into our emergency room so we can take care of you" She clearly knew what she was talking about and knew what I was going through because she deals with people in my exact situation on a daily basis. My abdominal pain just kept getting worse and worse as the day progressed and I couldn't take it anymore so I had my friend drive me to the ER at UCI medical center we arrive Wednesday night approximately 9pm. By the time we get there I can barely walk and need a wheelchair because I was no longer ambulatory. We get there and It's an absolute madhouse.There are patients everywhere, no open seats but at least i'm in the wheelchair and my pain level at this point is a 10/10 i'm moaning because breathing hurts so damn much. The triage nurse took one look at me and said ok we're putting you at level 2 because I can tell you're really hurting. I proceed to tell her im having a pancreatic flare, she asks me what helps? I tell her 1.5mg of dilaudid, but in my mind I know what I'm probably in store for. I get seen very quickly as my case was pretty evidently emergent. The first and only times i'm ever ALLOWED to even talk to a Dr. is at this point of the night in triage. The first Dr. a Dr. Tapia came to see me and I told him what was going on. I believe he was a resident as he was reporting to Dr. Megan E Guy a few feet away from me. She walks over and I repeat what I said to Dr. Tapia and I tell them both what treatment I typically receive when in these conditions. They say to me ok well we're gonna start with a GI cocktail and see if that helps, I'm thinking to myself and am pretty sure I said it out loud that it's not gonna help and can we please not go through this? I received no response and that was the last time I even saw Dr. Guy for the rest of the entire night. I was wheeled into another waiting room and sat and waited for about 15-20 minutes before someone came and took me for an x-ray then was returned to the waiting room. After another 20 minutes I was taken into the back to have an IV line placed and finally receive some treatment. I then met my nurse Jhay, I do not know her last name. The GI "cocktail" which was just Pepcid was given at 10:59PM along with 4mg of Morphine, before I was FORCED to take the morphine I begged her not to and that it would be ineffective and wasteful. I was told that I had to take the morphine and would only be given that 3 times at 10 minute intervals and then and ONLY then would the Dr even consider putting in an order for the Dilaudid. So for the next 2 and half hours I sat writhing and moaning in absolute fucking agony. After the third dose the nurse sent 6-7 messages to Dr. Guy requesting the Dialudid and was ignored for a really long time. I asked the nurse can I please just talk to the Dr?? I could tell i was starting to get on her nerves, and i'll be completely honest and say I wasn't the nicest but given my current condition I wasn't in the friendliest mood. I asked her was my Dr. the blonde Dr? She said, "We have many blonde Doctors" I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck? Seriously?? I ask Jhay can I please go find and talk to the Dr? To which she threatened me by saying that if I did she would call security. I was so shocked, I just sat in stunned silence and sat and waited until 1:24AM when I was finally given the Dilaudid. Within a few minutes I could FINALLY feel the pain start to subside. About 10-15 minutes later Jhay went on break and had another nurse who was covering her take me from the hallway back into the waiting room. I was confused as what usually happens next is a CT and I asked the nurse where she was taking me, to which she responded back to the waiting room, I asked WHY? She sort of chuckled and asked "Did you just say why?' in a very condescending tone, she said "cause you already got your treatment" stuck me in the waiting room and sat there for the rest of the night. After a few hours the Dilaudid started to wear off and the pain was back. Jhay is sitting at the desk and I keep asking her can I please have another round of meds i'm in a lot of pain right now. She ignored me for several hours until she finally told me that the Dr. would be out to talk to me. I waited another couple hours when they took me into the back room because i think i was causing too much of a commotion and being annoying because I kept pleading and asking for some kind of attention or treatment. I sat in the little treatment room waiting for about an hour kind of just talking to myself asking what was happening? where is the Dr?? please someone help me...A very mean, nasty, rude nurse by the name of Vanessa was cleaning up and I guess got sick of hearing me moan and ask these questions to basically anyone who would listen got fed up with me and told me "IF YOU DON'T WANT TO WAIT FOR THE DR YOU DONT HAVE TO, YOU'RE DISCHARGED" Me" WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS? WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME? PLEASE CANT YOU JUST HELP ME?? I thought I was getting meds? Vanessa" No, you're getting nothing. You're discharged. Hey Jhay you have his discharge papers?" Jhay" Yeah they're right here" Me" wait, whats happening?? are you guys serious?? Please don't do this, I'm hurting so much" Vanessa" You're discharged, you can leave if you don't want to wait for the Dr" She goes to get the discharge papers and i'm so heated I don't know what to do. She sticks the papers in my face and says sign here. I grab the papers out of her hand and she says "DONT GET AGGRESSIVE!!" Me" WHAT? You're gross, how could you do this to someone?" She walks away and i'm then asked to leave the emergency room. I’m left sitting outside in the cold at 530AM for an hour waiting for my mom to come pick me up. I'm still in a LOT of pain right now. I should still be in the hospital but there's no way I can bring myself to be subjected to this. This was absolutely fucking horrifying. I'm seriously traumatized and i'm terrified of having to go back tomorrow for my procedure but I absolutely can't wait and go somewhere else to have it done. What happened to me is happening every day in every hospital in this country. People are suffering because we can't get the meds and treatment we need because of the greed of one fucking family. I blame everything that happened to me and every other person like me on them. Fuck the Sachlers. If any of them ever asks themselves what has their greed done to this wonderful fucking country and how it affects everyday Americans like me, here assholes. THIS. THIS IS WHAT YOU FUCKING DID. UCI is responsible. The Sachlers are responsible. Dr. Guy is responsible. The nurses are responsible. This isn't all of it though. I just found out that my home hospital, the only one that kind of didn't make me feel like a drug seeking sack of shit was Fountain Valley Regional hospital was just bought by UCI a few months ago and now I have nowhere to go. Nowhere where I can feel safe and taken care of. I spoke with my lawyer and said that legally there’s nothing to be done. I don’t know what to do. I’m so lost and so tired. Please anyone, this is my last resort. I have no other recourse. I have nothing.

So my brother died suddenly and unexpectedly a few months ago. Perfectly healthy 42 year old male in good shape. The conclusion of the medical report was overdose. (Excessive amounts of cocaethlene, Hydrocodone, ethanol). No fentanyl, no cocaine in test.
Here is exactly what was found in toxicology report:
Blood Ethyl alcohol: .10 grams % Benzoylecgonine: 0.50 mg/L Cocaethylene: present Ecgonine methyl ester: present (Free) Hydrocodone: 0.02 mg/L (Free) Hydromorphone: Negative
From what I’m researching on google it seems like he has the byproducts of doing cocaine in his body but none present. His blood alcohol content is .1 which wouldn’t have been unusual for him at any given waking moment. His Hydrocodone level seems pretty low from what I understand. He did have a problem with fentanyl a couple of years ago and honestly I assumed he had a relapse. But no traces. Drugs found on him at death:
Acetaminophen oxycodone 325mg 9 Bupren/Nalox 30 Gabapentin 120
All that I can really tell from the report is he did cocaine 1-3 days before death, had a normal amount of alcohol for himself and a small amount of Hydrocodone.
I just don’t see how that is a overdose. The exact cause is acute poly drug toxicity. Is there some kind of insight anyone can give to help give me some closure on my brothers death?

Hello, I'm from Europe and I've been addicted to oxycodone. I was addicted to about 80mg a day taken several times either by insufflation or orally. I also had liquid oxynorm. I abused the medication for about 5 months. I got help from my psychiatrist in the beginning but he finally decided to give me a morphine substitute. He told me that methadone is a very strong product for the body and that subutex too. He said that in Switzerland we have "sèvre long", according to my information it is a complete agonist compared to subutex which is a partial with naltro. He said that's it's a better alternative.
Now what is the difference between takin extend release morphine vs methadone or subs for opioid disorder. And how it will affect me vs my consomation of Oxy. How the extend release gonna be calculated vs my oxy immediate release?
Thanks you very much in advance .

Hey all, just found this subreddit, I hope this question is allowed. I’m 49, have had traumatic arthritis in my ankle for about 25 years, been worsening over the last few years. Am needing a total ankle replacement, but I need to get into better shape before I can handle a surgery that big. Was able to find a pain management dr who would prescribe Oxycodone for me. After being on 10mg 3x a day for about a year and a half, it has predictably lost its effectiveness and I asked my doctor to switch meds. He said we could try Hydromorphone, but to be honest, I’m frightened of getting into the trap of needing more and stronger opioids to manage my pain.
I’ve never taken this med before, and I’ve read that it is stronger than the Oxy. I’ve read that these meds hit different receptors, so that when the body adjusts to the new med they can switch back to the previous one, instead of needing higher or more frequent doses. I am too young to resign myself to a lifelong use of pain meds. I’m hoping that once I can get the ankle replacement that will buy me some more time. I guess just looking for some idea about the equivalency of these meds and the ability to stay on a low dose? I don’t want to keep needing more and more.

I found posts like this helpful before my surgery so thought I’d share mine. I came down with a stomach bug & also a kidney infection during these two weeks, so I’ll say it was a slightly atypical recovery since it’s hard to separate which shitty parts were the surgery vs the other things. Despite how hard it was at times I am glad I did it.
Day 0: felt mostly fine following surgery. Alternating liquid oxycodone with liquid Tylenol. Was very tired, slept a lot. Ate yogurt successfully. Tried mashed potatoes and do not understand this common food recommendation. I thinned them out multiple times but still felt that potatoes are just too sticky a food, I needed my tongue to move around my mouth to eat them but my tongue was swollen and painful.
Day 1: still felt pretty okay. Wasn’t sleeping too much, spent most of the day on the couch but also easily took a shower and got the mail etc. Set alarms even through the night to not miss meds. Was super hungry. Yogurt again, then boldly ordered a French onion soup and Mac n cheese from Panera bread. (Let the croutons get super soggy in the soup). This absolutely slapped. No regrets. Later, some ice cream and Gatorade. Fairly good day with minimal pain.
Day 2: miserable as fuck. Despite the humidifier on constantly and sipping ice water consistently, my mouth felt so dry. Swallowing felt like knives. Only ate a milkshake, the act of using muscles to swallow was so painful as well. Talking hurt. Tongue still felt so swollen and sore. I could barely stand to get out of bed and needed a lot of help.
Day 3: even worse. Honestly this day is hazy. Like 2 day yet worse. Didn’t even feel okay enough to watch tv, just slept and drank water and slept more.
Day 4: woke up feeling suddenly a lot better. First day with no oxycodone, just Tylenol. Even went to an event where I did a lot of talking, and did some grocery shopping at target. Felt so human! I cooked lasagna soup, which sounded perfect but was too hard to eat. In retrospect, I went too hard. My two young kids came down with stomach bugs and started vomiting so I tried hard to avoid getting sick.
Day 5: back to feeling like day 3. Maybe I would have felt like this anyway but I wish I hadn’t pushed myself so much on day 4. I just ate a milkshake and was back on the oxycodone on a regular routine. I also developed a cough which was extremely painful. Talking hurt a lot. I called the surgeon because I wondered if I could take anything for the cough but he acted like I was drug seeking. I meant like “can I use my albuterol” but i was so upset and delirious I didn’t ask that, just asked what I could take and he clearly seemed to take it a different way. Started sleeping basically upright, which did help. My tongue at this point still felt really painful. I tried eating scrambled eggs but again, not realizing how much I rely on my tongue moving around in my mouth to even eat a soft food like that.
Day 6: felt a little better but learned my lesson and took it easy. Ate applesauce and ice cream and a couple gatorades, stayed on my pain meds routine. Talking didn’t hurt much, as long as i was quiet and didn’t say much. Watched a lot of tv and took it easy.
Day 7: this was the day i was originally supposed to return to work. I did not. I woke up with chills in the middle of the night. I had a fever and body aches and felt like garbage. I seemed to catch the norovirus my family had and had significant digestive issues. Throat pain was like knives. This was the day I first needed a spit cup. I had to text to communicate. Talking hurt so bad. Swallowing anything hurt. I tried so hard to stay hydrated but sometimes all I could muster was putting water in my mouth, leaning my head back to let it reach my throat then let it spill out my mouth. It hurt so bad.
Day 8: sweating through my sheets with a fever. Chattering teeth. struggled to even get out of bed to use the bathroom. I wondered if it was related to the stomach flu or the surgery (spoiler, it was neither). Throat pain was so awful still. Still struggling to swallow anything. Talking still very painful. Had absolutely no appetite at all. I called the surgeon again who said this could all be normal. He did say, if I wanted, I could go to the ER. Not like “you should” but like “idk what you want me to do” kinda way. This day I said a thousand times I deeply regretted getting this surgery.
Day 9: woke up with very obvious UTI symptoms (fever, chills, frequent urge to urinate without going, cloudy urine). I went to urgent care and was diagnosed with a kidney infection and got an antibiotic. Throat pain however, much reduced! Not gone but manageable. Ate a milkshake this day, soup, and yogurt.
Day 10: woke up with just minor pain, returned to work (from home) and managed okay with Tylenol as needed. Still felt yucky with fever and body aches. Ate my first “real” meal, chipotle burrito bowl. Couldn’t eat much though, my tongue still felt weird so took very small bites and chewed a lot.
Day 11: still feeling very tired and shitty but throat pain not terrible. Tylenol as needed. Tongue still feeling kind of bad. It hurts a lot to yawn! I had a jimmy John’s sandwich and it was pretty easy to eat though.
Day 12: calling this my first day of normalcy. Very little pain, not very tired, generally feeling good. I think I took a Tylenol once after I had been talking for a while and started hurting. I wasn’t looking at my throat regularly but I did this day and it just looked, pink and normal. I guess I lost scabs at some point but couldn’t tell you when, I never felt anything I clearly recognized as losing a scab.
Day 13-14 (now): feeling good. Some very mild discomfort but is not interfering with my life at all. My tongue mobility still isn’t totally there - reaching to my back teeth is uncomfortable. And swallowing, while it doesn’t exactly hurt, can feel weird and sometimes even a little difficult like I’m re-learning how to swallow. It still hurts when I yawn. I do also have some mild discomfort, particularly if I’m talking a lot.

Saltwire:
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — A P.E.I. resident known as "Stavros" and described by a paid police informant as "Summerside's biggest prescription pill dealer for over a year" has been sentenced to house arrest for drug trafficking hydromorphone in exchange for oysters.
On March 21 in P.E.I. Supreme Court, the offender – Stephen Peter Lakas, 46 – was sentenced to a conditional sentence of two years less a day (or 729 days) comprised of house arrest for the drug charge. The sentence was a joint recommendation from federal Crown attorney Scott Barry and defence lawyer Brandon Forbes.
Justice Nancy Key accepted the sentence recommendation and said it did not put the administration of justice in disrepute, was not contrary to the public interest and did not endanger the safety of the public.
However, Key added that even though she was accepting the joint recommendation, that didn't mean she was condoning Lakas' actions given that drug trafficking has become an "epidemic" on P.E.I.
Prescription hydromorphone for oysters According to the facts, police received confidential source information that Lakas (or Stavros) was trafficking prescription hydromorphone in Summerside from his residence on Chestnut Street and from his vehicle.
On Feb. 5, 2021, police officers conducted surveillance at Shoppers Drug Mart on Granville Street where Lakas picked up his monthly prescription for a total of 840 hydromorphone pills. Lakas' prescription was comprised of 750 eight-milligram and 90 30-milligram hydromorphone pills.
On that date, Lakas picked up his prescription as expected and exited the business. He then got into his grey Ford F-150 truck and drove around to various locations in the city. Lakas then returned to the business's parking lot. A male driver of a red Chevrolet Cruz pulled up next to Lakas' vehicle and got into the passenger's seat. After two minutes, the man (described in court as an acquaintance of Lakas) got back into the Chevrolet Cruz and drove away.
Lakas arrested The Chevrolet Cruz was pulled over by police and the driver was arrested. He told police that he exchanged a "feed" of oysters with Lakas for 15 30-milligram hydromorphone pills.
The man also said to police that he had received "hydros" from Lakas four or five times previously. He said the pills were for his wife's back pain.
Lakas was also arrested and police located 42 fewer eight-milligram and 15 fewer 30-milligram hydromorphone pills than the total amount of his filled prescription.
Police seized the leftover hydromorphone pills and other items, such as $2,600 in cash, 6.72 grams of hash oil, a wooden "billy" stick, an iPhone, a dime bag containing 0.15 grams of MDA (methylenedioxyamphetamine) and a score sheet. Lakas told police that the stick found inside his vehicle was for protection.
Lakas was charged with two counts of possession of hydromorphone for trafficking (in Summerside and Cornwall) and one count of drug possession of MDA. Court records show that one count of trafficking hydromorphone and the MDA drug possession charge were both withdrawn. The 56-year-old man who exchanged oysters for hydromorphone was also charged with drug possession for trafficking purposes, but that charge was stayed.
Barry argued in court on March 21 that the drug offence Lakas pleaded guilty to showed "a low degree of pre-mediation" and that it was impossible to know how much of the hydromorphone seized by police was for the prescribed purpose and how much may have been "diverted to other purposes."
With respect to trafficking hydromorphone for oysters, Barry said "in this case, there's no evidence of motive for profit in the circumstances."
Police investigation Police began receiving information from paid confidential sources as early as September 2020 about Lakas' prescription drug activities, including that he allegedly sold most of his monthly hydromorphone prescription from his vehicle and residence. Two sources said they observed Lakas selling hydromorphone pills.
That information is contained in an information to obtain a production order request for Lakas' medical records for all prescriptions and pick-up dates from Sept. 1, 2020, to Jan. 25, 2021, at the Shoppers Drug Mart in Summerside. The production order was authorized by a provincial court judge on Jan. 26, 2021.
The production order request also includes an affidavit from a Summerside police officer assigned to the Prince District Joint Forces Operation (JFO) Drug Unit. The officer says that he regularly meets with confidential informants about illegal drug matters and adds that he is a handler or co-handler of more than five confidential informants.
In the Lakas investigation, police relied on information from four confidential sources identified as A, B, C and D. The comment about Lakas allegedly being Summerside's "biggest prescription pill dealer for over a year" was made by source C.
Police informants In the affidavit, the officer gives an overview of the circumstances of the four police informants. The informant's criminal records are redacted in the production order court file. Even so, the officer states that he wasn't aware of any of the informants having convictions for crimes of dishonesty, misleading police or perjury. The officer further states that he believes the information received by the sources in the investigation was reliable.
The officer adds that the sources had been providing police with information for more than a year (and in one case, more than five years) and none were interested in becoming police agents. Three of the informants (A, B and C) have been paid by police and were financially motivated to provide information. Those three informants' "circle of associates" included people involved with criminal and drug activity. The other informant – source D – wasn't paid and was motivated to provide information "for the good of the community."
Source B also told police that Lakas' Summerside residence on Chestnut Street had previously been broken into and $60,000 and a large quantity of hydromorphone pills were stolen. That information coincided with a report Lakas made to Summerside Police Services on Oct. 7, 2020, that his residence had been broken into.
Offender circumstances Lakas, who is originally from Richmond Hill, Ont., discussed his personal circumstances in an affidavit filed with the court. Lakas says he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and bowel cancer when he was 23 years old. Since then, he has had 16 surgeries due to complications. As a result, Lakas was prescribed increasingly larger doses of hydromorphone (and oxycodone) for the pain that led to an addiction. Lakas has also been diagnosed with mental health issues.
Despite having a prior criminal record, health issues and drug matters before the P.E.I. court, Lakas travelled to Europe in March 2022 to help out with humanitarian efforts in Ukraine during the war with Russia. Lakas says he settled in the Ukrainian cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson for a period of time and returned to P.E.I. in March 2024.
His work overseas involved delivering truckloads of supplies to families and organizing fundraising efforts and events for children. Lakas also says he wore a Santa Claus suit one time and delivered presents on a scooter to children in Kherson. In Mykolaiv, Lakas says he "found himself" and "eliminated all dependency on prescription opiates," which were not available in the city.
Criminal record Lakas' prior criminal record is also referenced in court documents for off-Island convictions from 2004 to 2008 for drug possession, fraud, theft, obstructing a peace officer, unauthorized use of a credit card, possession of stolen property and attempted fraud.
Lakas also discussed in his affidavit a conviction for sexual assault on May 11, 2010, after a trial in New Brunswick. Lakas was sentenced to a prison term at the Atlantic Institution in Renous. After a period of time in custody, Lakas successfully appealed and had the conviction overturned. Lakas is suing the attorneys general of Canada and New Brunswick and others for wrongful conviction and failure to disclose constitutionally required documents. Lakas says the lawsuit is still before the court in New Brunswick.
Lakas' sentence has more than a dozen conditions, including that he must remain inside his apartment in Charlottetown except to attend appointments or counselling sessions. As well, Lakas is only allowed to possess or consume prescription medication and he must submit to drug testing. Lakas is also required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet during the sentence.

" " So many people today are very quick to claim 'expertise" in cannabis this or that. Myself I have never claimed cultivation superiority or any superiority really. I have worked independently to create a means to best understand modern hybrid cannabis. The extent to which we as a society understand the effects of cannabis are largely based on anecdotal evidence from users many of whom are not sincerely passionate about cannabis and about being accurate and honest in their review if it's effects. In addition, we orient these effects characteristically by sativa vs indica, but today's cannabis is extensively hybridized.
When I say hybridized I am saying one genetic strain crossed over another. Landrace genetics brought into the lab taken from their endemic environment is an heirloom, not a hybridized plant. It is modified through control of lighting and control of the environment like humidity to amplify it's desirable properties. Also remember the "desirable Properties" this cannabis has been developed to achieve on the modern market was to enhance the psychoactive nature and intensity with which the cannabis gets a person high.
There has been no real work done on targeting cannabis using genetic modification and hybridization in the same way we controlled for potency but in order to produce for example a strain specifically used for Alzheimer's. Rather people who have Alzheimer's report anecdotally when they experiences positive effects from a product or strain. Even the FDA referenced social media posts recently in 2024 to find colloquially accepted and anecdotally reported medicinal benefits/ successful Therapeutic application of cannabis.
After they found that Hippies Disappointment by The Stanley Brothers caused a quelling of seizure activity in Children suffering severe neurological abnormalities like Dravets Stndrome and they used that to create the only pharmaceutical made to date derived directly from cannabis that they would do more towards uncovering the other miraculous applications of cannabis.
They also know that their synthetic pharmaceuticals marketed as far back as 1987 like Dronnibinol (Marinol) and Cassameat. So really by lessening restrictions on study of CBD dominant low THC cannabis they're not risking much because they've been doing these THC, CBD, and other cannabinoid derivations for decades themselves. Yet they still have not either supported a company to do so or themselves pursue a medicinal cannabis strain specifically oriented to treat a particular condition.
Cannabis today is as medicinal as the strain itself is inherently therapeutic for the individual using it. This varies wildly from phenotype to phenotype and even varies wildly for example between sativa vs sativa. Two Sativas of 60/40 sativa lean can have completely different experiential profiles. This is easily exemplified is.comoaring a 60/40 hybrid that is expressively dominant (not necessarily dominant overall) meaning it is the face of the sativa leaning characteristic of that terpene profile is Terpinolene.
Comparatively ocimene is another characteristic Terpene of sativa that isn't necessarily dominant overall but is expressively dominant of sativa characteristic, specifically carrying from terpinolene containing Sativas in that ocimene Sativas are typically of south American descent and terpinolene of Asiatic decent.
This isn't even bring into the equation the extensive intensification of psychoactivity due to the effects of hybridization and the fact Myrcene is present as dominant 50% of the time the fact is we have now a market highly dominated By Myrcene dominant profiles, this has intensified the psychoactivity in many instances and in other instances depending on how myrcene appears in the profile and what type of beta Caryophyllene is present has increased sedative effects of the beta Caryophyllene, even for example in a Sativa with Beta Caryophyllene like Blue Dream.
My protocol is helping at least Me.and those who see it and taken it seriously enough to understand it understand the still largely unknown synergistic benefits of cannabis in the market today is a huge opportunity for people to learn and be the people who figure out the deep secrets of cannabis the FDA IMO knows is present in cannabis. by understanding how the strains vary and understanding this through the Terpenes and cannabinoids, I am able to begin associating patterns and expression of certain compounds either alone at a particular level for example or paired together not only indicate this experience or that but with enough data can aid me in correlating the experiential effect to the strain most likely making that happen or strains, however it may be. Taking that information one could more easily attempt.to grow cannabis which is specifically oriented to address one type of condition for another.
I don't mean using the potency of THC for pain Management as this is a well known and IMO one of the more understood aspects of cannabis that more Than potency causes pain reduction. We now also know though that synergistic implications play a role in that analgesia as well because the anti inflammatory benefits of CBD particularly paired at desirable levels of THC produce better analgesia than just amplifying the THC potency. I think it would also be interesting to see the effect of Myrcene on pain given that increasing it at certain ranges causes heavy CB1 activity, but it heavily supported by evidence indicating analgesic applications.
A lab study of lab rats that were injected intra peritoneally and subcutaneously were shown to exhibit non reward seeking pathway analgesia on par with prescription opiates, and against, it did so using a novel pathway which didn't cause the addictive reward seeking behavior seen in morphine and oxycodone for example. So given that sort of implicit contraindication, it would be interesting to see the parabola for the data of Myrcene increasing and how it effects pain management vs increases psychoactivity. At a certain point the psychoactive intensity for.many like myself becomes overwhelming and makes the experience unpleasant.
There is a lot of possibility in the way I have laid out Terpological Protocol specifically. And I have laid it out intentionally as a work in progress always evolving with new knowledge, undefined end date longitudinal anecdotally supported experiment to create a protocol to better understand the cannabis today and use that to create the cannabis of tommarow as corny as it sounds.
The cannabis of today is focused on potency, even the companies focused ON Terpenes are still all about how potent the cannabis is. And my hypotheses about the illicit market leaning toward sativa because of people preferences and dealers meeting those demands can be evidenced in people avoiding lower THC and Indica smelling cannabis.
Some beautiful cannabis like Buckeye Purple is absolutely totally purple no green at all nice sparkling crystals but is between 10-15% and sold terribly at Grow West here in Western Maryland and i cant imagine it sold well elsewhere. I enjoyed and people who understand weed more deeply than potency enjoyed it, like purple Obeah. Also very low THC compared to High Test only at around 15% but is dominant in linalool with a crazily unique floral PUNGENCY. But people miss these jewels focusing on only getting as blasted as possible as quickly as possible, the chazzed banger crowd.
So that's that . . . .. hope it opens your mind up a little and make ya Wana dig into my content.
Don't break the law while your breaking the law
Advoc8 always Meduc8 Daily

Hello everyone! I had my monthly PM appointment this week for my medication refills. Shortly after my PM doctor sent my scripts in, my pharmacy called me to let me know they couldn’t fill my normal 8mg Hydromorphone prescription. They said it’s in a back-order and it’s so far back that they couldn’t give an estimate as to when they would get it in. Then they called my PM doctor to discuss other options. I’ve been taking 8mg Dilaudid 4x a day for three years now, was previously on Oxycodone before that. I also take 30mg Morphine ER 2x a day and have been for almost six years.
They ended up settling on an equivalent dose of Oxycodone (as close as they could get it) which I started taking yesterday. The Oxycodone now seems to be a little more effective than my Dilaudid, which seems strange to me since Dilaudid is stronger than Oxycodone. Has anyone experienced this before? Slightly better relief by stepping backwards?
Could it simply be that because they are chemically different (assuming they aren’t real similar to each other) I lost my tolerance to the Oxycodone, built a tolerance to the Dilaudid, and now because I have no tolerance to the chemical properties of Oxycodone it’s appearing to be more beneficial? Or could it be that the oral BA is just higher with the Oxycodone so it only appears that way for now because it’s “new” and will change in a few days?
Does my question make sense? Has anyone experienced this?
Thanks in advance for your responses.

I do not have much hospital experience and am looking to find good resources about IV lines. I need help with what medications could be run through y-site together and also what must be central line vs preferred central line vs ok in peripheral line. I found some slides from ASHP that were helpful but did not have the answers provided.
Also could anyone help me answer this example scenario from the ASHP slides? What is the best way to run these medications, and does this patient need additional IV access options?
• AM is an adult patient with a 3‐lumen central catheter
• Medications – Plasma‐Lyte 75 mL/hr – Norepinephrine – Vasopressin – Propofol – Vancomycin every 12 hr – Piperacillin/tazobactam every 8 hr (infused over 4 hr) – Intermittent hydromorphone, famotidine
• Patient now needs KCl replacement for K = 3 mEq/L
​

I’m a 43 year old male living in San Francisco and was diagnosed back in high school with mitral valve prolapse (which they discovered via a really faint heart murmur). At the time, it was decided to wait and see and eventually the murmur went away. As I changed doctors over the years, no one seemed concerned.
Over the past few years, I’ve been noticing that my tiredness has increased and I was getting increasingly winded walking upstairs but attributed that to getting older (and to recently diagnosed sleep apnea). During my physical back in August, my primary care physician was listening to my heart and said “woah”. He gave me his stethoscope and let me listen and sure enough, there was a significant murmur that sounded like “thump, squish, thump” surely indicating that my prolapse had re-emerged with a vengeance.
After a few tests (including an EKG, Echocardiogram, and a Transesophageal echocardiogram), I was confirmed to have myxomatous degeneration (FED) with severe mitral regurgitation with anteriorly directed eccentric jet. Essentially, because my mitral valve was enlarged, blood was shooting back up in the wrong chamber of my heart instead of into my body causing it to have to work harder.
I met with my cardiologist and he explained that it wasn’t emergent meaning I wouldn’t have to get it addressed immediately but that I would need to eventually and the younger I am, the faster I’ll rebound. I decided to wait a couple months to get past the holidays while we did some more tests to confirm if my valve and repairable and get on the surgeon’s schedule.
Finding a surgeon
My cardiac doctor referred me to the chief of cardiac surgery for Kaiser in San Francisco and we had a consultation with him. He was super nice and informative but explained that he only did a method with a full sternotomy (meaning, they crack open your breastplate and go in from the top). I had done some research and knew there were alternative approaches that were minimally invasive and had to ask if that was something he supported. He said no but he has a colleague that does that and if I’d like to consult with him, he’s happy to help set that up. He talked through what he saw as the advantages to his method and downplayed the differences between the “normal” method and the minimally invasive method but ultimately, I was leaning towards a minimally invasive. This was a big lesson to me – you really need to do your own research (which isn’t easy!) to at least understand your options. Doctors will almost always defer to what they feel most comfortable with because that’s how they are trained (which totally makes sense if you think about it – you want someone who trains on fixing what you specifically have the more experience they have in it, the higher chance of success). I think overall though, I was a bit disappointed that they pigeon holed me into a method without at least explaining the options.
After my consultation with the second surgeon, it felt right on all levels and he not only specialized in mitral valve repairs (which is what I needed), he also could do either method and felt equally comfortable with both. He said that many doctors do around 10 of these a year and he does 2 a week which, while maybe not 100% accurate, sounded great. I found that it’s really hard to get good solid information on hospitals and doctors with respect to how they rank in specific surgeries but was able to at least gain minimal confidence that Kaiser here in the Bay Area had a solid program.
So I went through a couple extra tests to confirm I was a good candidate for the minimally invasive port approach to repair my mitral valve (essentially a couple of scans). Everything was set for my surgery in early Feb.
As we were leading up to my surgery, I found my level of anxiety increasing. First, there was a question of getting things set up at work to cover my absence. I have a somewhat stressful job (probably because I mostly make it that) but was trying to balance taking enough time off to recover but also not be gone for too long. I came to the conclusion that without knowing what recovery would look like, I would take a recommended 12 weeks off (my company has a generous medical leave policy) so it was nice to know that I would have a long runway to recover.
Second, there was the unknown of what recovery would look like. What would it feel like when I woke up? How much pain would I be in? How long would that last? Etc. There weren’t a ton of resources that provided the level of detail I was interested in to feel like I could have an idea of what recovery would look like and that was a bit scary for me.
Oddly, I wasn’t super anxious with the surgery itself. I felt pretty comfortable with my surgeon and knew that I just had to trust that they knew what they were doing. It was more of the unknown following surgery that gave me pause. Of course, you have moments where you think about things going wrong and not waking up after being put out but those were minimal in my overall emotional process. As the surgery date got closer, evenings is where my anxiety peaked but as the day approached, I was just ready to get to the other side.
Day of Surgery:
My call time for surgery was at 5am. After going through some quick things during the admitting process, my husband and I went up to the cardiac surgery floor and waited to get check in. Once there, a nurse set me up with an IV catheter (which would get heavy use over the next week) and asked me to change in to my scrubs. They took a full inventory of the belongings I brought with me but on advice of others, I didn’t much of anything except my clothes and my phone. Luckily, I lived locally and would have visitors pretty regularly so if I needed anything, they could bring it. They did advise me to bring my CPAP machine which I did (but in practice, I ended up not using it because most nights I slept a bit elevated which helped; well, that and the drugs).
After I changed into scrubs, they put in in a bed with a warm blanket and wheeled me to a pre-op room. One of the nurses asked me if I had any questions while another shaved all my body hair around the surgical sites. Note, if you are a guy, I’d recommend trimming your arm hair down because you’ll get a lot of blood draws and IV so when they pull off the tape, it can be a bit painful and they didn’t shave my arms because that wasn’t near an actual surgical site).
Then the surgeon came over and asked how I was doing. He also asked if that he can’t repair my valve and needed to replace it, what I wanted to replace it with (a biological or mechanical valve). I wasn’t expecting to make that decision there and felt like I had to make a snap decision but in our original consult, I had asked about what happens if they can’t repair and they talked through the options. For me, they said that a biological valve would calcify quickly and because I was young, it would almost certainly mean that I’d need to get the surgery again within 5-10 years whereas a mechanical valve would last me a really long time. So in my head, I knew a mechanical valve was the right choice for me and I confirmed that with the surgeon when he asked me that morning. But! I encourage you to understand all the permutations of what can happen and the pros and cons of each. Talk to your surgeon beforehand to get comfortable with the possible outcomes so you aren’t making decisions right before going into surgery.
They made me say goodbye to my husband and wheeled me into the OR which was quite the site (it was my first surgery). They transferred me to the table and my anesthesiologist was there and started making small talk with me. I remember two sentences before I was out.
I would later learn the surgery went pretty quickly by most standards – I was out around 7:30 and everything was done by 10:30ish and the surgeon called my family around 11:15 which is when I was transferred up to the ICU.
My next memory was a few doctors over me telling me it was time to wake up. My brain was sort of with it but it didn’t feel connected to my body. As I was coming out of my anesthesia, I remember my mouth being really dry and feeling the breathing tube. They were trying to get me to breathe on my own and they would do so by turning down the oxygen in my breathing tube. I’m semi conscious at best and recall the machines alerting when I wouldn’t be breathing and they would all tell me to breathe and I’d start breathing again. I think they had to turn up the oxygen once in that process so it took two attempts to get me breathing again.
I remember my mouth being so dry and uncomfortable and the machine alerts would always snap me back to reality. By 3:30, my tube was able to come out. When they were ready to take it out, I remember them saying to cough which, after heart surgery, is no easy feat. I can’t say it was painful when they pulled it out but it was definitely uncomfortable and it felt like there were a lot of stuff attached to the tube. I was able to give the meakest cough but they eventually got it all out on one long pull.
From there I was gaining more and more consciousness and was aware of my surroundings a bit more although I couldn’t really talk or do much with my body other than point or give a thumbs up.
As I regained more consciousness, I was able to see what all I had coming out of me. I had two lines – one on the right side of my neck and another on my lower left side of my neck. I also had a small tube coming out of my right peck and a larger chest tube coming out of my right peck that would be with me for a while and was meant to drain fluid in my chest. I had about a 3 inch scar under my right peck (which is where the port was that they did the surgery) and in my groin which is where they put me on bypass. I also had a catheter to help drain my bladder.
They tried to get me out of the ICU as quickly as possible but all in all I was there for about 24 hours so I spent the night. It was nice because you essentially have a dedicated nurse who constantly helping to manage your pain (although you are still a bit out of it). I had a challenge with being nauseous as I was coming off the anesthesia and with the pain meds so even though they pumped me full of anti nausea medicine, it was a constant balance of managing either my pain or my nausea. Because of the nausea, they wouldn’t really give me water because they didn’t want anything in my system to throw up but they would occasionally give me ice chips which were godsends. I did end up throwing up a little bit at one point but it was very minimal. I think my body knew it would be painful to have anything substantive come up so it was a little spit up. But I always kept the tub close.
Before they could move to the regular ward, they removed the smaller tube in my breast (which wasn’t painful because they ablated the nerves in my surgical site – which I recommend as it apparently helps minimize a lot of the pain). I think they also removed the lines in my neck (but those could have been removed before I woke up – I can’t recall).
They also make you sit up into a chair and then also go for a walk before they move you. It felt like a herculean mental effort to transfer to a chair but when I did it, with the assistance for the nurses, it was easier than I thought. The walk was a bit tougher for me. I was able to walk ok but I started to tremor and shake uncontrollably (like I was cold; but I wasn’t cold). I’d come to learn those are called “pain tremors” or “pain shivers”. I wasn’t actually in that much pain but they said that your body is in so much stress that it doesn’t know how to react. It got so uncontrollable they had to lay me back down and give me more pain meds. It also has to do with my body purging the remaining the anesthesia and sounded like the pain meds were interacting with that.
Despite that, they were ready to move me to my own room on the hospital floor and there was an aggressive nurse who couldn’t get me out of the ICU fast enough.
Regular recovery.
24 hours after arriving in the ICU, I was being transported by wheelchair to my normal hospital room where I would spend the next few days. Overall, I expected to be in the hospital 4-7 days hoping that my relative youth would put me on the early end of that.
Once I arrived in my regular room, it was a pretty standard routine of being woken up at 6:30am, getting my blood drawn for labs, and a nurse coming in every 4 hours to check my vitals to give me medication. They would tell me what medications they were giving me but honestly, there were so many that it was hard to keep track. There were checks on my pain and if I ever said I was in pain, they were pretty open with pain meds (Oxycodone and Tylenol) but they weren’t always volunteering the Oxy which I think is a good thing. You need to be honest and proactive about telling them your pain level but also be mindful that you’ll eventually need to wean off of them (and by eventually I mean after you leave the hospital).
Sitting in the hospital room is sort of miserable (to no one’s surprise). I was able to get to the bathroom on my own (and it certainly got easier each day). I almost always had pee in a container so they could measure my output. I had a really tough time peeing early on and they were going to put the catheter back into my bladder but I definitely didn’t want that so I made sure I peed and once I got through the initial hurdle, it got a little better.
The first time I tried to walk, I got the same pain tremors again so I had to cut my walk short but after that, it settled and I was able to walk fairly regularly. They told me walking is the most important thing I could have done and I was surprised the nurses didn’t force it more but given I had visitors to help me and I was tired of sitting in the room, I tried to walk around the floor 2-3 times per day.
Each day someone from the surgical team would pop in and ask how I was doing. One of the bigger pains (literally and metaphorically) is that they keep your chest tube in for quite a while to help drain fluid in your lungs. The nurses measure every few hours and it’s the last thing (aside from your IV) that they pull out of you. It’s pretty uncomfortable and leads to a dull pain in your chest and shoulder. The pain meds help but it makes it difficult to get truly comfortable. In addition, you have a plastic box with tubes that you have to carry around anywhere you go while it's in. I believe they took it out on Friday for me so it’s with you for a couple days (to ensure the drainage is winding down).
One thing I wasn’t aware of is that they were going to put me on blood thinners for three months following the surgery. Because I was getting a repair vs. a replacement, I didn’t think I’d need blood thinners (you’re on them permanently with a replacement as I understand). Blood thinners are high maintenance – you have to watch what you eat and drink and they require multiple blood samples to make sure you stabilize in the right range of “thinness”. Luckily, my hospital covers traveling nurses to visit you at home to check for you but that’ll happen at least twice a week for a few weeks until you settle. But all things considered, I can manage that .
Overall, I was in the hospital for 5 full days, including my surgery. I went in on a Tuesday and was able to go home on Sunday which I was told is pretty quick. There was a possibility that I would have been able to go home on Saturday but they were putting me on blood thinners and my levels weren’t right so they wanted to get that closer to normal. When I was able to go home was a complete mystery to me and everyone I asked would give a different (or non) answer. I’d learn that the on call doctor helps make that decision so when they come around once a day, ask them questions on the criteria for going home as they are best suited to help you know).
Home
About 1 week out from the surgery I was home about 4 days and overall I’d say my recovery was going pretty well. It was hardest early on but each day gets better as your body stabilizes. I hadn’t had any issues with walking (I was able to take a 30 min / 1.3 mile walk my second day home) but I definitely have to take a slower pace and have some breaks.
You get sent home with some pain meds to help manage but not quite as powerful as what you had in the hospital . I’ve found that most of my pain is in my breast area near the surgical sites. It’s certainly manageable but feels both tight and pinchy at the same time. As I mentioned, they ablated my nerves around the site which I think substantially helps minimize pain there but you can certainly feel the pain underneath the numbness and the mobility in my right arm is much more limited and I’m much more sensitive to it.
Sleeping was challenging at first but I made sure to have a healthy dose of pain meds before bed so I could sleep easier and that’s helped a lot.
I’m about a month out from surgery as of this week and I’d still say it’s going well. One of the frustrating parts of the process is that they don’t really give you any granularity as to what your recovery will look like (and anything they give you seems geared towards a full sternotomy and not a minimally invasive approach). Of course recovery is different for everyone but it would have been helpful to get a sense of the average recovery.
I’m pretty mobile and able to go where I want and walk decent amounts of time. I found that the pain was pretty manageable during the day but at night, it would escalate. I took some sort of pain meds before I went to bed to make sure I didn’t have flare ups at night but I’ve mostly stopped those within the past week. The biggest annoyance I have (and it can get significant) is a fairly intense burning sensation I have around my shoulder, back, and arm. It’s not constant but it flares up after a lot of movement (or a day of moving) and it’s like having really bad sunburn under your skin which makes it hard to concentrate or do a whole lot. I think it’s caused by my nerves growing back (the sensitivity is where I have feeling on one side and numbness on the other). My visiting nurse also tends to think I have some muscle inflammation. I know that the nerves take 4 months to a year to grow back so I’m hoping the burning doesn’t last that long but we shall see.
Now that I’m far enough out, I feel like I’m able to start living my life pretty normally (except going back to work – I probably could go back to work if I really needed to but that would be pushing it). I can’t say that I feel an differently after the surgery. I’m guessing that’s best left to a time when I’m fully, fully recovered (back at work, etc.). I am still a bit winded walking up stairs though.
It’s really strange to process everything that happened to me. Oddly, I get flashes of guilt that pop up, almost akin to survivor’s guilt which is really weird (and somewhat baffling) but thankfully they are fleeting. The doctor said that going on bypass messes up your endocrine system so you get all sorts of feelings and emotions. I can’t say I’ve experienced the crying and depression that others said are common (although depression and I are old friends) so that’s been good. There’s a large part of me that wants to go back to doing everything normally but I know I still have to take it easy – I’m learning that I’m not great and allowing myself to fully heal.
I hope this helps a little to demystify the process for some folks.

Is this something I need to be concerned about? I do have a brain mass and also had one on my thymus that was monitored for a while. I did call and make an OB/GYN appointment, but it isn’t for a few weeks.
"REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS: 7.5 cm bilobed right ovarian cyst or cystic mass with a 3 mm thick septation but no mural nodularity. 4.5 cm simple left ovarian cyst."
33 F Smoker, no alcohol, no illicit drugs 220, 5’10
Secondary adrenal insufficiency, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis(post thyroidectomy) TBI Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Chronic migraine Trigeminal neuralgia Brain mass(possibly a pilocytic astrocytoma) Post herpetic neuralgia I do have my periods every two weeks or so due to my pituitary issue
Hydromorphone, Oxycodone, Motrin, Tylenol, Zoloft, Gabapentin, Synthroid, prednisone, Liothyronine, Fludrocortisone, vitamins, Botox injections for migraines As needed: naratriptan, baclofen, Tizanidine, ativan(only brain MRIs and certain medical appointments)

Hi all,
I am home recovering after a pretty awful few days in the hospital with kidney stones. I'm almost 15 weeks pregnant with my first. I passed my first stone about 10 years ago so I knew when I woke up a few nights ago with unrelenting, sharp pain that it was a kidney stone. It was so much worse this time, though, holy hell. Just absolute hell. I ended up getting a stent replaced and they gave me an epidural (I could choose between that and GA) and so after 30 hours of pain that was half-managed by hydromorphone, I finally had relief and the surgery seemed to help as I no longer have pain in my kidney, just discomfort from the stent and probably the surgery as they went in through my urethra.
They are giving me the option of having the stent replaced every 4-6 weeks (this is standard in pregnancy) and I can have the epidurals vs. GA, or putting me under GA, removing the stent and blasting the stones with a laser. They said there is slightly more risk with GA and pregnancy, but that it is best to do any surgery in 2nd trimester as there is less change of triggering labour. I'm leaning towards stent removing and blasting the stone (if there is one - they can't confirm as they won't CT scan me in pregnancy) to just have this be done with.
Just wondering if anyone has gone through something similar in pregnancy? Would love to hear your stories. I'm pretty nervous about how this might impact the baby. :( And obviously terrified of a loss. Wondering if anyone had advice for preventing stones in pregnancy? The kidney stone doctor said we won't talk about changing my diet until after pregnancy as a kidney-stone diet isn't conductive to pregnancy. I'm drinking lots of water... and lemon water... but yeah.... any insight or advice or stories would be helpful <3 Thank you!

I see lots of talk of those not getting pain medication when needed and I was one of them. I’m talking the hard to get pain meds like opiates/synthetic opiates mostly. So I feel those of us that have them not only should help those that don’t on how to properly ask the doctor, but also on what they may expect to be prescribed. This may help some understand their dose is what most people get even if not adequate, maybe see that what they think they need is just not prescribed or maybe show someone else a medicine they didn’t like exactly works for a lot of people and so on.
I’ll start. My starting dose was 10/500 3 times daily hydrocodone. I’m now on oxycodone 10mg 6 time daily as the acetaminophen in hydrocodone was too much with supplements I needed to take and hydromorphone didn’t seem to work at all.
Edit: don’t downvote, “wow” or shame people for their responses. This is exactly what people fear they will receive from the doctor and their loved ones. No one usually wants to be fully honest in the first place because of that. This is to help those also to see if they need more or less.
ALSO those on heavy long term doses it’s still ok to respond. as those like me that it took for me to became disabled from crps for them to finally give me painkillers. That let’s me know what I can ask for and most importantly tells me I should’ve had them way way earlier. That can help someone.