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Key facts Codeine is an opioid pain-relief medicine used for the short-term relief of mild to moderate pain. It is not usually recommended for the treatment of chronic (long-term) pain. Codeine is only available on prescription from your doctor. If you stop taking codeine suddenly, you may experience withdrawal symptoms.

https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/codeine

Addiction



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Tolerance Over time, you may develop tolerance to the effects of codeine. This means that your body needs more and more of the drug to feel the same pain relief or other desired effects. In other words, tolerance makes the drug seem less effective to your body. How quickly you develop codeine tolerance depends on factors such as: your genetics how long you’ve been taking the drug how much of the drug you’ve been taking your behavior and perceived need for the drug

So Larry is taking like six tablets a night by now? No wonder he lives alone in a Housing Commission flat—even on prescription (doubt it) that is quite a cost, 2-3 packets a week!


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Dependence As your body becomes more tolerant of codeine, your cells begin relying on the drug to prevent withdrawal symptoms. This is dependence. It’s what leads to intense withdrawal side effects if codeine use is stopped suddenly. One sign of dependence is feeling that you must take codeine to prevent withdrawal symptoms. Dependence can occur if you take codeine for more than a few weeks or if you take more than the prescribed dosage. It’s also possible to develop codeine dependence even if you take the drug exactly as your doctor prescribes. Dependence is often a part of addiction, but they’re not the same.

I was skirting on the edge of dependence with the Endones prescribed and supplied to me after my hip replacement operation—stopped in time. I had quit smoking and did not want another addiction! 21 Endones Annie and me calculated I had taken and dependence is 30 doses apparently. If I had given in and taken that 22nd Endone well, dependency and addiction not far away!



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Dependence vs. addiction Dependence and addiction both cause withdrawal when the drug is stopped, but they’re not the same thing. Dependence stems from long-term exposure to a drug, and people dependent on a drug will experience mild or severe withdrawal symptoms when they abruptly stop taking the drug. Physical dependence on a prescribed opiate is a typical response to treatment and can be managed with help from your doctor. Addiction, on the other hand, may follow dependence. It involves craving and compulsively seeking the drug. Addiction can change your brain circuitry, leading you to use a drug despite negative consequences and eventually to lose control over your usage. It often requires more support to get through.

“Can be managed with help from your doctor.” What if you didn’t get it on a prescription from a doctor? Who will help[ you then? I guess you go on until you are sent to drug rehab. Larry was missing for quite a while not so long ago, remember?


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Symptoms of withdrawal Withdrawal symptoms may come in two phases. The early phase occurs within a few hours of your last dose. Other symptoms may occur later as your body readjusts to working without codeine. Early symptoms of withdrawal may include: feeling irritable or anxious trouble sleeping teary eyes runny nose sweating yawning muscle aches faster heart rate Later symptoms may include: loss of appetite nausea and vomiting stomach cramps diarrhea enlarged pupils chills or goosebumps Many withdrawal symptoms are a reversal of codeine side effects. For instance, codeine use can cause constipation. But if you’re going through withdrawal, you may develop diarrhea. Likewise, codeine often causes sleepiness, and withdrawal may lead to trouble sleeping. How long withdrawal lasts Symptoms may last for a week, or they may persist for months after stopping codeine use. Physical withdrawal symptoms are strongest in the first few days after you stop codeine use. Most symptoms are gone within 2 weeksTrusted Source. However, behavioral symptoms and cravings for the drug can last months. In rare cases, they can even last years. Everyone’s experience with codeine withdrawal is different.

https://www.healthline.com/health/codeine-withdrawal#treatment

The article goes further but the above is all we need. Do NOT take Mersyndal “every night.” Just now and then when you have severe pain.

LOL—codeine causes constipation! Oh dear!

Fuck codeine, dear. Buy yourself a 30g packet of poppy seeds from the supermarket. Cheap!

Throw them in the backyard this Christmas. Go on, just do it.

By May next year, you should have a blooming opium patch of white/purple poppies - divine!

Harvest them and cook them up in a jolly pot of boiling water. You'll get a bitter, green tea that will put you on the nod for about a week, no worries.

Sweet dreams.

Jovial Monk wrote on Oct 15^th, 2022 at 9:51am:

LOL—codeine causes constipation! Oh dear!

ANY opiate will
Panadeine Forte (and generics) which contain 500mg paracetamol and 30mg codeine phosphate)

https://www.mclarendental.com.au/assets/full/347485.jpg

- and even the now prescription only Pananadeine (and generics) which contain 500mg and 8mg codeine phosphate

https://shadeguide.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/32-383.jpg

I'm prescribed Panadeine, daily, for neuropathic pain (along with carbamazepine and amitriptyline)
Constipation is a normal, short term, side effect with opiates until the body adjusts
Stopping it suddenly would cause short term diarrhea, as the other side of the story
I reckon I know more about pharmaceutical effects - and side effects - than the average chemist.

Neurofen Plus (Ibuprofen and codeine) tells the same story

Karnal wrote on Oct 16^th, 2022 at 3:05am:

Fuck codeine, dear. Buy yourself a 30g packet of poppy seeds from the supermarket. Cheap! Throw them in the backyard this Christmas. Go on, just do it. By May next year, you should have a blooming opium patch of white/purple poppies - divine! Harvest them and cook them up in a jolly pot of boiling water. You'll get a bitter, green tea that will put you on the nod for about a week, no worries. Sweet dreams.

Don't worry about planting them.
Just buy a big bag of seeds - sold in all good health food stores
I add in some valerian tea, for extra sedation.
You'll need to add in there the juice of a few lemons, to release all the "goodness" from the poppy seeds.
The lemon juice MUST be freshly squeezed.
The yellow plastic juice bottles of LJ don't work - for some reason

There are a LOT of recipes online

Just ONE word of warning
There have been a few - albeit very small in number  - reactions with people unused to opiate based pain killers.
This brew CAN give an effect similar to a heroin overdose
So if you feel like sleeping on it - DON'T

I don’t need any opioids or other painkillers anymore. Some have so much paracetamol that liver damage could happen.

A Mersyndol every night, like Larry takes, would take you past dependency and into addiction. Larry would be taking more than one Mersyndol—tolerance to an opioid. Guess we know now why Larry flies into a tizzy every so often—codeine rage.

The first thing to disappear from a First Aid kit in a workplace is any kind of pain killer.  Asprin, paracetamol etc.

People don't have to be in pain, if there are free pain killers, they will take them, just because.

Me?  On the rare occasion that I take panadol, I sleep remarkably soundly, maybe even don't even wake up for a piss.  I have been wondering if they place a sedative in there as well.  Some people could develop a dependency for that alone

People, like Sprint, mentioned inflammation. That suggests anti inflammatories are better than painkillers. Fish oil tablets are good as are hemp seeds.

No doctor would prescribe codeine for a long term problem like sciatica.

Jovial Monk wrote on Oct 16^th, 2022 at 10:36am:

I don’t need any opioids or other painkillers anymore. Some have so much paracetamol that liver damage could happen.

In long-term use of prescribed use of paracetamol/codeine mixture medications, it's the paracetamol that does the greater damage, to the liver and kidneys, in these combinations.

Any patient with severe, chronic pain - would be better off prescribed opiates, in their purest form.
The only danger there, is addiction - which occurs with combinations, as well.
It would more common sense to prescribe just the opiate - but medical authorities are. not known for their common sense

I mentioned to my anaesthetist before my last surgery, that I could not recall any effect from pre-meds before surgery.
He just smiled and said "I'll give you something you won't forget"
I heard him request "two units of fentanyl" to run through my drip.
It's become quite an item on the US illegal drug scene.
I can understand why.
It wouldn't have worried me much - if I'd died, then and there, on the operating table.