Makes DB seem like yoga.com! The opiates and benzos are just appetizers on that poster's menu.

I hate to have to keep bringing up unpleasant facts about this young man's demise, but chronic pain patients are being pushed against the wall on this one.

Ryan, I know you are resting in a better place and none of this was really your fault. You made youthful errors, I did my share too. For those old enough to understand, they called me a "garbagehead" 30+ years ago, but I never went into my chemistry set looking to get high. Whatever I took in my youth was at least in some way meant for human consumption.

The Xanax from the OP the young man contacted was simply to take the "edge" off the concoction he was experimenting with which involved morphine and other stuff. In fact, I'd have to venture there is a strong likelyhood that at least some of his ingredients could have been stolen through his family's legitimate medical access. His father was an eye surgeon and I believe an earlier post mentioned his mother was a nurse. There's no proof of that however, but the rest of his arsenal certainly didn't come from the types of OPs we depend on.

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You haven't seen me for a while. Nice, medically endorsed and freely dispensed Lexapro screwed my life up something serious the last two months. Last week they wanted to send an ambulance over to take me to a mental hospital.

Two years of wonderous relief from my pain through hydrocodone never had an effect on my daily life. BTW, none of the doctors suggested any relationship between my modest use of hydro in addition to Lexapro may have caused all these problems and cost me everything I had in life.

That Lexapro made me like an insane person. I continually thought I was wearing an imaginary hat that I kept trying to take off. That looks real good at work. Finally, HR calls me in and says I'm unproductive and am walking too slow now (after a stunning career) and my job is in danger.

I stopped taking it suddenly (against advice) and really lost it for at least the last two weeks.

I know this is real OT, but when you are talking about drugs, let's be straight on what the dangerous ones really are. Was I prescibed Lexapro based on a careful analysis of my complaints (general depressed feeling over many recent family illnesses, the sick state of the world and the sad state of the economy and middle aged malaise)? No, they said let's see what samples the pharmaceutical reps have brought in this week. My Telemedicine Provider questioned me a LOT more before suggesting hydro. Ironically, with the Lexapro, all anyone was concerned about was the one thing that I know that I would NEVER do --commit suicide.

All I ever asked the docs at the medical center for was an Rx for Xanax or Valium for occassional use. I said now and then I get a little anxious about life and I feel I need something that works like a shot of scotch; calms me for an evening. Not these new, blood level SSRI's that mess with your head. Xanax, Valium, Clonopin, just one of those to have on hand to get me through tough times. They absolutely refused, said "we don't give that stuff out here".

Understand why we need Telemedicine Providers. Last thing I told the shrink when she wanted me to replace the Lexapro with a combo of two drugs, one "brand new" was "Dr. you may know your medicines very well, but I know me better than you do and I know what will help me". No wonder you see all those sidebar ads from lawyers in the papers with these drug names as the heading.

I think I lost some brain functioning too. I forgot a lot of words that I used to know.

No one looks at me the same anymore, family, co-workers. They're fortunate enough not to have experienced these things and ask inappropriate questions like "How many (Lexapro) have you taken today?", "Are you still on them?", "Did you just take something", "You don't need drugs, just learn to face your problems".

Good old hydro, used judiciously by a responsible adult made it possible to sit in a chair and do productive work without continually concentrating on pain. But hydro is the evil one. Of course, we know hydro too is not a miracle drug for all, the dependency problem is real and many handle it sadly. You can often tell from their posts. However, that doesn't make hydro intrinsically evil by a longshot. In NYC, there has been a spate of insane "husband taking wife/ex-wife/kids hostage", usually resulting in deaths.