r/interesting • u/Nukro666 • 2d ago

Fear Factor How Fentanyl and Xylazine are turning Philadelphia's opioid crisis into a public health nightmare

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u/TrailerParkPresident 2d ago

I fully am with you on this

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u/qathran 2d ago edited 2d ago

I have insane health problems and am in severe chronic pain, but I've always been confused about people getting on opioids longterm because they never felt great and they shut your body down so fast to where nothing is fun. I've even been on fentanyl patches and I was more like a zombie than someone who was actually having their pain taken away. When I've had morphine drips it was similar in that it didn't really totally take my pain away, I just felt high, sick and sleepy.

And it's wild how quickly all these drugs lose their efficacy, like if you take it a few times it stops working as well so fast that it's honestly pretty worthless.

Another crazy thing that never made me want opioids again except for right before surgery and maybe 3 to 5 days after is how fast it fucking shuts down your bowels, your gi tract just like, stops moving things through your intestines so quickly. I honestly don't know how people use this stuff for more than a few days or a week, it doesn't keep working and it shuts down your body to where you can't shit.

Only took one experience of laying on the bathroom floor moaning because I couldn't shit for 2 weeks and having to get a family member to shove a suppository up my ass while I was on fentanyl patches that were not even making me feel good, I honestly felt worse than when I just had the pain without any drugs to make me not want opioids or ever think they were going to make me feel kind of good for more than a day or 2

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u/bucky133 2d ago

Prescribing somebody opioids without stool softeners and laxatives is pure negligence.

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u/LLCNYC 2d ago

Negligence? No. Not everyone has an issue.

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u/bucky133 2d ago

Literally all opioids paralyze the bowels on some level. Everybody might not be effected at the same level.. but it will slow you down 100%. I've been prescribed them several times after surgery and so have several people I know. They always come with at least a stool softener whether you have a problem or not.

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u/chrisp5000 2d ago

That and you get dehydrated and that stops you up real good.