Darsh
Pre-Flight
I was given and injection of hydromorphone, trade name dilaudid, at the hospital today to ease pain from a recent injury. Does anyone know how long it will take to be legal to fly?
If you had pain requiring dilaudid, dilaudid is the least of your worries.
Dilaudid is terribly- the most addictive one we have, but last short- about 3 hours. That's why it's so addictive.
Assuming none of that happens, 48 hours will do.
The delaudid is injection only, so i won't need to worry about that. The norco howver is prescription and take home.Dude, at this point, don't even worry about it, it's nothing to concern about. It'll be a few days after pain killers. If you have real pain, you need real pain killers. The bad part is you're gonna have to come off them and that can be a bit of a process in itself. If you're asking out of consideration of a flight in the next 72 hrs, at this point I would say you wouldn't be ready even if you didn't take another dose. So just take care of whatever is requiring the pills, and after you get off them for a few days you see how you feel. If you feel up to it you go. That's the way I always understood it and I've had enough injuries where I needed them and asked the same questions you're asking now. In the end, it is up to you to medically qualify yourself between medicals. It's pretty much on the honor system really. The whole medical thing is for that matter when it comes to small GA.
In the end, you say whether you're ok using the guidelines set forth, and as you've noticed, the guidelines are really loose. There are specifics "Can't do while", but outside of those mostly medical conditions, with injuries it's pretty different. You can't while you're on the pain killers is a "can't", but to saw how long after that is up to you. When you feel clean, fit and capable. Where you are now, 48 hrs wouldn't be enough lol, I been there. You've got one full day of comin down coming your way. BTW, there's 2 ways you can go about that in the first few weeks. You can lessen the intensity of the misery by stretching it out with a 1/3rd strength of the last dose. I don't think it's worth the extra day though. If you're on them for more than 2 weeks, or get into heavy dosing for severe pain then you're gonna have to stretch it out or you can be in serious trouble. I've personally been amazed at how little medical aftercare one gets for this btw. You get to DT it out on your own, they don't keep you around long enough to detox in the hospital. Now, Here is where it all goes wrong for so many people. You are now surgically cured of your pain and since the hospital doesn't want to deal with your detox and find out what your pain level is, they send you home with a bottle of your pain killer and you don't quit taking them. If you're in pain, you need them for your brain to function. If you're not in pain...the nod is nice.... Easy to be seduced, happens to a lot of people....
The delaudid is injection only, so i won't need to worry about that. The norco howver is prescription and take home.
Norco isn't that bad, it's same as a Tylenol 3 or Vicadin, it's acetaminophen with hydrocodone (Codine). oxycodone is considerably more powerful, more like heroin, but none the less has withdrawal issues. I don't like them if I know I'm gonna take them for a while because the acetaminophen gives me terrible headaches when I take it more than a couple of days, and it's not real good on the kidneys either. Just give me clean oxycodone....
Norco isn't that bad, it's same as a Tylenol 3 or Vicadin, it's acetaminophen with hydrocodone (Codine). oxycodone is considerably more powerful, more like heroin, but none the less has withdrawal issues. I don't like them if I know I'm gonna take them for a while because the acetaminophen gives me terrible headaches when I take it more than a couple of days, and it's not real good on the kidneys either. Just give me clean oxycodone....
Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco) is stronger than codeine, but less than oxycodone. They are generally used in combination with acetaminophen since together the pain relievers have a greater effect. The formulation is not to prevent iv use.
The only things worth taking that are legal are aspirin and oxycodone, but not mixed. The aspirin is constant dose limited by the stomach while the oxycodone is variable by need.
Not exactly. Codeine (9050), Hydrocodone (9193) are schedule II drugs but combination codeine with acetaminophen Tylenol#3 (9804), or hydrocodone with acetaminophen Anexsia, Lortab, Vicodin (9806) are schedule III, less restricted. Adding acetaminophen to a narcotic may have a small effect in terms of pain control but it is toxic to the liver in high doses making it less useful to narcotic abusers. You might be surprised what stuff people will inject. I saw a 22 y/o guy last week for a heart attack he had after injecting "white rush" bath salts intravenously.Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco) is stronger than codeine, but less than oxycodone. They are generally used in combination with acetaminophen since together the pain relievers have a greater effect. The formulation is not to prevent iv use.
I may be showing my age. Years ago there was a special prescription form for certain pain meds. It was a real hassle to write for the stronger stuff.Thanks for the clarification, I write these all the time butwas unaware of the differences in class. We have gone to multimodal anaesthesia, so only use vicodin or Percocet later after discharge, and mostly long acting and gabapentin primarily. Most of our rxs now go electronically, no more paper scripts, and for all practicl purposes the class of drug does not seem to be too important. Electronic rxs do make refill requests easier, and no chance of getting scammed by someone who says they lost the paper.
Whatever your injury, does it really sound like you could or would be capable of flying safely? Depending on the opiate, you could have detectable levels for days in the blood, urine, or stool.
Why go back to an ED? Didn't they give you the names of some docs to contact for follow-up?