Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School released a study warning individuals that acetaminophen and Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) can cause high blood pressure in men. The study took 4 years to complete and was composed of more than 16,000 male health professionals with an average age of 64.6.  The study used men who did not have a problem with high blood pressure.

Researchers had the candidates take different regimens of acetaminophen and NSAIDs.  The group that consumed acetaminophen for 6 or 7 days per week were 34% more likely to have high blood pressure compared to those who did not take any.  The individuals consuming NSAIDs for the same duration had a 38% higher risk of high blood pressure.  Aspirin raised risks by 26%.  It was also discovered that if a man took 15 or more pills in a week, their risk of high blood pressure increased by 48%.  Researchers believe that these forms of analgesics block the body’s natural substances which normally relax blood vessels and keep blood pressure regulated.  Researchers advise that if  someone takes large doses of analgesics, they should have their blood pressure checked regularly.

Well its official, Purdue Pharma has successfully maintained their exclusive right to be the only producer of OxyContin for the next 13 years.  The FDA decided that they would allow Purdue Pharma to keep this position because the company promised to release an abuse-resistant form of the drug. In return the FDA will not approve or accept any generic forms until 2025 when this new patent expires.  This is great news for Purdue Pharma considering they raked in $2.8 billion last year, and we really cannot kid ourselves in thinking that their profits will level out there.  It is a business that only gets bigger as the years go on.

This new formula is supposed to be harder to crush in order to be snorted or injected, but I just decided to google “ways to circumvent the tamper resistant OxyContin” and found out that people have found at least three ways to achieve it.  Recreational users are willing to go the extra mile to achieve their high, even if it means tampering with chemicals.

About a year ago, Canada replaced OxyContin with OxyNeo—a tamper-resistant form of Oxycontin.  You may wonder what kind of results they witnessed; they found that abusers figured out how to tamper with the pills or they replaced it with a new drug, often heroin.  This is a little scary, it just means to me that if a person wants to abuse a drug they will.  No matter what drug companies or the FDA come up with, there is going to be a problem.

Other information I uncovered about this new form was that people who suffer from chronic pain and take painkillers to get relief found that they do not like this new type.  One lady from Florida swears that the new formula does not relieve her pain as well as the old one, which worked for 12 hours at a time for her.  Others say it makes their stomach upset because of the gummy substance the pill contains.  A pain sufferer from Massachusetts shared, “During those months [on the new form], I became increasingly sick with terrible GI (gastrointestinal) upset, headaches, anxiety, increased pain, sleeplessness, irritability, vomiting etc. After my doctor called my pharmacist, we figured out that it was the new formula that was making me sick. Since going off of the new formula, my symptoms have improved, but my pain has never been as well controlled as it was on the original OxyContin formula.”

As a rebuttal to these claims, Harald Stock, the maker of this tamper resistant formula, said that it is common for those specific side effects to accompany opioids. He also stated,  “The mode of action of the technology that makes it tamper resistant is not bioactive. The technology that makes the pill hard and makes the pill gel has no effect whatsoever on your body. It’s inert.”

That may be so, but I still have doubts.  If someone already consumes opioids on a regular basis, wouldn’t they know if opioids make them nauseous and that they are not feeling relief as well as they once did?

So it seems that in an attempt to curb the rates of recreational users and abusers, chronic pain sufferers might be the ones experiencing the negatives.