I am on day 5 of battling kidney stones, and when I was in the ER Sunday night I specifically stated that Hydrocodone did not work well at all for me, so the ER doc asked if Percoset worked better, and I said "Yes", so she said she would prescribe Percoset instead.

By the time I finally was discharged at 11:45, we were so frustrated and irritated and the idiots we'd dealt with all evening (I despise going to the ER on the weekend and really tried to hold out until Monday morning, but just couldn't) that when we were handed the discharge papers with 4 Rx's, we just got the heck out of there. Well wouldn't you know it.... they gave me a scrip for Hydrocodone instead of the Persoset I was supposed to receive!

Not surprisingly I went through the stuff at maximum rate, and at the beginning even had to take two pills instead of one to "jumpstart" the pain relief because one wasn't working! As I'm now down to the last of the 10 pills they gave me, I thought I'd "stretch" it when I started to hurt again by taking two Excedrin Migraine tablets (acetaminophen, aspirin, caffeine). Surprisingly, this stuff seems to do just as well, or so it appears so far, in pain relief as the narcotic stuff does!

So, my question is this, is there a valid reason I should NOT be taking Excedrin Migraine while battling kidney stones?

Thanks in advance for your professional advice!

Not a pharmacist or a nephrologist, but if you are already taking Vicodin (acetaminophen + hydrocodone), just have to be careful when taking extra Excedrin Migraine, since you could potentially OD on the acetaminophen.

Yeah, I've been very careful about that, and have made sure the pain pill dosage time (6 hours) had expired before taking the other stuff!

Agree with Q about the acetaminophen. Each of the hydrocodone tablets has either 300 or 325mg of acetaminophen. The Excedrin has 250mg per tablet. It isn't recommended to exceed 3000mg from all sources of acetaminophen per day per the most recent recommendations.

Did they give you a prescription anti-inflammatory? If so adding the aspirin in Excedrin on top of that may not be a good idea, especially if they gave you ketorolac.

No anti-inflamatory...

3-4 grams/day max dose on the tylenol (short term).

You'll find that Motrin (or another NSAID) will work better for you stone pain.

I believe the NSAID (aspirin) in Excedrin Migraine is a no go for kidney stuff. I believe Motrin is also on the list to avoid.

I'm talking from the standpoint of dealing with my son's kidney disease, not stones. Still, I'm certain that's a negative on the NSAIDS.

If you can get a doctor to prescibe it, you might try oxycodone (I think it's called "roxy" by the nurses). i believe its just the oxy without the acetaminophen. It's stronger.

I have a bunch left of the lowest dosage (5 mg) but I think they go to 20 or 25mg. I ended up cutting each in half. It didn't take much to cut my pain, but my stuff was different than kidney stones.

Oxy is the stuff they talk about on TV news causing the "Oxycodone epidemic", so it's powerful.

BTW, I think "Percocet" also has 500mg of acetaminophen and when my fiance took it, it gave her a killer headache.

I'm not a pharmacist or anything, so this is just an FYI from my experience.

James

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I believe the NSAID (aspirin) in Excedrin Migraine is a no go for kidney stuff. I believe Motrin is also on the list to avoid.

I'm talking from the standpoint of dealing with my son's kidney disease, not stones. Still, I'm certain that's a negative on the NSAIDS.

No go, or proceed with extreme caution, if you already have kidney disease / damage, as in your son's case. Usual treatment for kidney stone pain is actually NSAIDs, as pointed out above.

Yep, I'm kinda surprised they didn't prescribe an NSAID as well. I usually see opioid, tamsulosin, zofran and 5 days of ketorolac for kidney stones from our local docs.

I was lucky and passed my single stone within a day of becoming aware of it. I don't remember what they prescribed for me--oxycodone, maybe--but I only took it for less than a day.

flashguy