Percocet
From Drug Rehab Wiki
Percocet is strong painkiller made up of a combination of acetaminophen and oxycodone, and sold under the trademarked names of Endocet, Magnacet, Percocet, Primalev, Primlev, Roxicet, Tylox, and Xolox. Doctors usually prescribe Percocet on a short-term basis for severe pain, usually for people who have just had surgery. The oxycodone in Percocet is a narcotic that changes the way the brain and nervous system respond to pain. Acetaminophen is a common over-the-counter pain reliever commonly called by the trademarked name Tylenol.
The main two dangers of Percocet are addiction and liver damage. Percocet and other oxycodone products are among the most widely abused drugs in the United States because they are addictive. Besides addiction, the other danger of abusing Percocet is from taking too much acetaminophen, which can permanently damage your liver. This is even more likely to occur if you drink more than three drinks a day along with abusing Percocet. Each Percocet tablet contains 650 mg of acetaminophen, and the maximum medically-allowed dosages are 1000 grams at one time and 4000 grams a day. The FDA recently voted to limit the amount of acetaminophen in prescription pain-killers because of these dangers.
Certain people should never take Percocet, including people with very low blood pressure, those with histories of drug addiction, asthma, COPD, sleep apnea, or other breathing disorders, or liver or kidney disease; alcoholics; epileptics; and those with certain digestive or brain disorders.
If you take too much Percocet, you can experience symptoms that require emergency treatment, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, sweating, and confusion or weakness, pain in your upper stomach, dark urine, yellowing of your skin or the whites of your eyes, extreme drowsiness, pinpoint pupils, cold and clammy skin, muscle weakness, fainting, weak pulse, slow heart rate, coma, blue lips, shallow breathing, or no breathing People who have become chemically dependent on Percocet experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop using it, including restlessness, watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, yawning, sweating, chills, muscle or joint aches or pains, weakness, irritability, anxiety, depression, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, fast heartbeat, and fast breathing. They usually have to go through a medically-supervised withdrawal, and then learn healthier ways of coping with stress within a psycho-therapeutic process.
