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What Are The Side Effects Of Oxycodone Over Dosage?
Question: What would happen to a 190 lb woman, who has built a tolerance over 2-3 years to oxycodone, if she chewed 600 mg of oxycodone?
Brief Answer:
How much tolerance?
Detailed Answer:
Hi. Thanks for coming to HealthCareMagic,
It really depends on how much the patient has been taking in the past and what the patients liver and kidney status is. As narcotics are metabolized by our bodies we build up a tolerance to them over time. The effect is that we need larger and larger amounts to have the same effect. That also means we need more and more to get to the point of Overdose.
That having been said... 600mg is a whopper of a dose. So if the patient does Overdose you will need to get them to the ER right away to have their stomach cleared. Narcotics interfere with a persons ability to breath. So the patient would lose consciousness and stop breathing.
Please stick close to the patient and check on them. Ideally, you should just dial 911 as soon as they start showing any symptoms.
Also, ideally, if this dose hasn't been prescribed by the doctor, then you should inquire as to why the patient took such a heavy dose. Sometimes people develop addictions to that stuff and need counseling and treatment to deal with the issue.
Take Care and my best to your patient. Feel free to follow-up if you need any more information.
Vin
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
There is no problem with the patient's liver or kidneys. She has taken at least 30 mg of oxycodone (sometimes 60 mg) 3 or 4 times daily, along with 30 or 60 mg of kadian for the past year or two. These have always been swalloed whole. She wanted to know if chewing 600 mg gives a different result than if pills are swallowed whole. Would this still likely to be only an overdose and not killing. She said she sometimes also takes some tylenol and/or flexeril with the oxycodone. Also, what would happen if she took .5 mg xanax along with her mixture.
Brief Answer:
Chewing and adding Other sedatives is XXXXXXX
Detailed Answer:
Chewing 600mg would increase the rate of absorption of the drug and could lead to a fatal overdose as the rate of absorption is faster than the patient is used to. Tyelenol is a pretty benign drug to take this stuff with and would have a synergistic effect for pain control. We normally try and have our patients take a Non Steroidal Pain Killer like Tyelenol along with the Narcotics for that very reason.
Flexeril on the other hand is a muscle relaxant and can drop your blood pressure. So, again, it depends on the patients overall tolerance to the drug. It could be pretty XXXXXXX if the persons blood pressure is already on the low side.
Xanax is a med that also can drop your pressures a bit and can cause severe confusion when taken with such high doses of narcotics. So it's tough to predict what would happen.
Overall, with all of this, it's very difficult to predict what would happen. What can firmly say is that chewing such large amounts of narcotics is NOT SAFE and could be fatal for the patient.
Hope this helps.
Vinay
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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