Yesterday I wrote about more stringent warnings about acetaminophen (ACM). You can read that here.

Now a govt. agency is recommending that Percocet and Vicadin be banned due to the problems associated with ACM. The way that Percocet and Vicadin work is they combine a narcotic with ACM to fight pain.

ACM is combined with different narcotics in at least seven other prescription drugs have a combination with ACM and these will all be banned if the FDA listens to the advice of the experts. Vicodin itself is prescribed more than 100 million times a year in the US.

When the panel members were asked what the consumer could do to help themselves, most agreed that the there needs to be better education about the risks of these popular meds.

Dr. Jan Engle, a panel member and head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Illinois in Chicago, encourages people to keep track of what they are taking. ““If you keep track of what you’re taking, none of this is an issue for you.”

While I think that Dr. Engle is correct, you must take it one step further. You must examine what is causing you the pain you are feeling. If it is something obvious, say golf, you must stop. Taking a Percocet or Vicadin in order to play golf is only covering up the pain signals. Continuously covering these signals of pain is only going to lead to further problems down the road.

In the past I used to think that patients would only hurt themselves worse by taking a bunch of meds to keep doing what they want to do. Now I am afraid that taking these meds may actually really hurt someone, and to me that is unacceptable.