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Stimulant Agreement (WI)
#1
Does anyone have experience being under a stimulant agreement in order to receive meds?  This is my first time and I'm wondering if the drug screen will measure how much of the drug I have in my system versus simply testing to make sure I'm taking my meds.
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#2
It depends on where you are going. If you are only going to GP, most likely they are only going to do a simple cassette test kind of like the ones you get at walgreens...those only are qualitative, which only tells what you a positive or negative, in which you would be safe, but if you are going to a specialist I.E. a psychiatrist or PM, a lot of them are going with specimen validity testing (to see if your pee is real, fresh and unadulterated) along with LC/MS or LC/MS/MS (mass spec) testing in which it breaks the analyses you test positive for down to the ion and then even further down into pieces. Each specific analyze breaks apart into its own pattern of pieces, kind of like a snow flake how no two are the same, and that is how they can tell what your positive for. For example, if you are taking say Bronkaid which is an OTC asthma medication you can buy at the drug store, this will test positive for amphetamines, but when they test it by "mass spec" they can tell if it Bronkaid or an illicit form of amphetamine. Or even your prescribed stimulant. They all have different ways of breaking apart. Then they measure the amount of analyses that have been broken and that's how they see how much you are taking, if it is within therapeutic range or if you are taking too much. Be careful, and study up on the "half lives" of the meds you are taking and that will give you an idea of when it will be certain amounts in your system. Stimulants usually have a shorter half life than most meds so it gets excreted rather fast as opposed to other meds, depending on how much you take.

Hope this helps! Sorry if I confused you!
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#3
Thank you so much for your reply!  It is ordered by my psychiatrist so it is a "drug panel, urine, screen with reflex confirmation".  I'm in nursing school and have also done a ton of research regarding the medication for which they are testing for so you didn't confuse me too badly!  It was extremely helpful!  Do you work in the lab industry?  I have to take my first test since being prescribed next week.  My plan is to only take the amount I'm prescribed for three days prior to the test.  But, since I normally supplement at a dose higher than prescribed, my only concern would be the amount coming back higher than the level that should be there.  Does that make sense?  I would love to hear your advice!
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#4
(03-21-2017, 10:16 PM)Merrick Wrote: Does anyone have experience being under a stimulant agreement in order to receive meds?  This is my first time and I'm wondering if the drug screen will measure how much of the drug I have in my system versus simply testing to make sure I'm taking my meds.
I know with my drug test, it breaks it down to a concentration level and was told it was hard to interpret. It’s a $1400 drug test! Thank GOD for insurance. 

but for instance @x@. It will break down its metabolites and some of the metabolites are actual medications were prescribed. Like @x@ breaks down to @x@m@orph@n@. If you can decipher that. Remember - rules rules rules rules rules

A Great Mind and a Good Heart and Soul Will Always Prevail and Rule Over The Rumors Fakery and Bullsh@t That You Go Through.
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#5
Many of us learned to never volunteer the name of a med that works. They will deem you to be a bad guy. User. Let the doctor slowly find their own darn way to the appropriate med. FL has problems cuz two famous brothers set up clinics down there and ran a mill and were busted. But NY? Unless one is a politician or filthy rich, we barely can get scripted with ibuprophen with a coating. But when a doctor hears the patient say a med, their wee ears go up. And u may live to regret your sharing. Damn shame.
Angel  It is Well with My Soul  Angel


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#6
(03-19-2021, 03:12 PM)Charon Wrote: Many of us learned to never volunteer the name of a med that works. They will deem you to be a bad guy. User. Let the doctor slowly find their own darn way to the appropriate med. FL has problems cuz two famous brothers set up clinics down there and ran a mill and were busted.  But NY? Unless one is a politician or filthy rich, we barely can get scripted  with ibuprophen with a coating. But when a doctor hears the patient say a med, their wee ears go up. And u may live to regret your sharing. Damn shame.

That is sad but true. I remember those two brothers. They led to some deaths

Eddie
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#7
Twin brothers Chris (right) and Jeff George were behind a massive pill mill operation in South Florida.
Zuma Press
Late in 2007, Chris George, a 27-year-old former convict with no medical training, opened his first pain pill clinic in South Florida. With no laws to stop him, George and his twin brother, Jeff, were about to become kingpins, running pills up and down I-75 — quickly dubbed “Oxy Alley.”

In his new book “American Pain” (Lyons Press), author John Temple chronicles the rise and fall of the George brothers and how hard it was for law enforcement to shut them down.


At their height, George’s six South Florida pain clinics, the largest of which he called American Pain, saw thousands of patients a day.

It all began innocently enough. In the early 1990s, a relatively small pharmaceutical company called Purdue Pharma had developed an extended-release morphine drug called OxyContin. Since the pill broke down slowly in the digestive system, the company was allowed to put higher doses of the active ingredient, oxycodone, into each pill — up to 160 milligrams.

Essentially synthetic heroin in pill form, oxycodone alters the perception of pain while decreasing anxiety and elevating mood.

Drug users quickly figured out how to get around the time-release: Crushing the pills, then shooting or snorting them up, delivered an immediate, powerful rush, as addictive as any hard street drug.

Purdue Pharma launched a counter-offensive, hiring “experts” to talk to the media about the under-treatment of pain.


They poured millions of dollars into internal research that conveniently found OxyContin addictive in less than 1 percent of patients.
The drug was a game-changer. Before OxyContin, pain drugs of this caliber were limited to treatments for bone cancers and end-of-life pain management. But Purdue — along with other Big Pharma companies developing similar oxycodone-based products — began pushing the drug for treatment of vague chronic conditions like back pain.

For the George twins, Florida was the best place to open pain clinics. The state had no centralized prescription database. Anyone could open a pain-pill clinic — no license or authorization required — and doctors were legally permitted to sell drugs directly to patients.

So Chris George hired one doctor and another and another, until he had a raft of them. He paid them per patient, incentivizing large and frequent prescriptions.

By now, doctors in Florida were ordering nine times more oxycodone-based pills than doctors in the other 49 states combined — 41.2 million doses to 4.8 million collectively.

American Pain alone prescribed almost 20 million pills over two years.


OxyContin was the backbone of the brothers’ empire.
Getty Images
The clinic’s top performer was a young doctor named Cynthia Cadet. During her 16-month tenure, Cadet became the No. 1 writer of scrips for oxycodone pills in the country — some days seeing more than 70 patients.

“Everyone loved that fact that she generally wrote big scrips,” Temple writes. “Even on the first visit.”

But the FBI and the DEA soon targeted American Pain, which did not operate discreetly.

George’s clinics were staffed with strippers; heavily tattooed bouncers patrolled the parking lots in golf carts. Doctors carried guns. Clients were peeing on the sidewalk, shooting up in the parking lot, dealing drugs in plain view.

On Wednesday, March 3, 2010, the FBI raided George’s home, along with American Pain and six other clinics.

That year, Cadet stood trial for distributing narcotics for non-medical reasons and a resultant seven deaths. In fact, Cadet alone had served 51 patients whose deaths could be linked to prescription pills.

Cadet was found not guilty. Her defense: How could she possibly know if patients were lying about their pain levels?


Dr. Cynthia Cadet leaves court in July 2013.
ZUMAPRESS.com
Facing a possible life sentence, George eventually agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and was given a reduced 17½ -year sentence.

In the wake of the trial and the media coverage it generated, Florida changed many of its laws and established a prescription-pill database to minimize doctor-shopping.

“So the pill mills left Florida, to great fanfare,” Temple writes. “But, unabated and under the radar, the country’s appetite for pills has only continued to grow.” Last year, the number of kilograms of Oxy produced in America jumped from 131,500 to 149,375 — three times greater than in 2004.

And the very agency involved with the takedown of George’s pill mills is partly to blame.

I know many more became addicted. Did not realize one twin was a convicted felon. Good start. It was a major legal case that started them downward.

A family had an appointment and something like a car accident, or a train hitting their car, of patients waiting days, made the news. And people were fed up with the crime and all the extras hanging around.

Meet the George brothers — the oxy kingpin twins - How ...hxxps://heroin.palmbeachpost.com › meet-george-brothe...
Jun 27, 2018 — At least 50 overdose deaths reportedly linked to that oxy. ... $4.5 million was hidden by the twins' mother in her attic.

hxxps://nypost.com/2015/09/13/twin-brothers-build-drug-empire-with-help-from-doctors-strippers/
Angel  It is Well with My Soul  Angel


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#8
I know this is an old post,  but the book "American Pain" is an amazing book about how a loser selling roids at a gym created such a oxy empire he had to buy a pharmaceutical distribution center just to keep his clinics pharmacies stocked. It also shows how the DEA approved every request to create more of the drug, in the face of data opposing it, in addition to and how and who the FDA gets their orders and funding from.
The story of how this ring got shut down is even more improbable. It's a couple years old now, but I highly recommend it if this sounds interesting. Charon only gave a glimpse into the story, and her post is fascinating alone.
 The families that lost loved ones to this tragedy is heartbreaking enough, the 2nd round where doctors are afraid to properly treat chronic pain in patients, or a patient getting kicked out of a pain management clinic because he tested positive for traces of POT, which happen to a coworker will be part 2 of this needless tragedy.
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#9
That is fine Apple. We are glad to see people posting again. I used to post the reason NYC never sleeps is cuz we cannot get appropriate meds for anxiety, illness or pain.

Horrific tale. I don't see it improving any time soon.
Angel  It is Well with My Soul  Angel


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#10
How Ironic... I watched this the other night. The TV show American Greed has a documentary about it.. It was crazy to see the volumn of people walking into the place and walking out within minutes. It literally was a Oxy convenience store back in those days.. That really started the crackdown of opioids and rightfully so... It's just a shame it filtered down to law abiding Dr's who prescribe their patients pain relief out of compassion.
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