Hydrocodone And Vicodin
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What is Hydrocodone?
Hydrocodone is a cough suppressant and analgesic agent for the treatment of moderate severe pain. Research indicates that hydrocodone is as effective as codeine for cough suppression and nearly equivalent to morphine for pain relief.
Hydrocodone is the most popular prescribed opiate in the United States with nearly one hundred and thirty million prescriptions for products containing hydrocodone. There are hundreds of brand name and generic hydrocodone products throughout the world. All of these products are combination products and the most frequently prescribed combination is hydrocodone and acetaminophen.
Hydrocodone abuse has been increasing over the years and is escalating in recent years.
Hydrocodone street names include: Vikes, Hydro, Norco
Cough and hydrocodone products
Hydrocodone has a negative connotation as an addictive drug used as a pain killer. However in many cases hydrocodone is the perfect drug to help patients with mild to severe cough issues. Hydrocodone is used to relax the muscles and other body tissue that are involved in serious coughing onsets. This helps control the coughing spells a patient will go through allowing them to get the rest they need to recover from a virus or illness. This is one of many reasons why hydrocodone is still a widely used drug even though it has such an addicting power over many people.
Is eliminating hydrocodone and vicodin an option?
Many doctors say that if the FDA would eliminate the use of hydrocodone and vicodin in the US then there would be a limited number of options when treating patients for certain issues. Even though hydrocodone and vicodin can be highly addictive the positives to treating illnesses and pain associated with illnesses and diseases outweigh the addictions that are created with the drugs. On a scale of positives and negatives hydrocodone and vicodin do much more positively to help the medical community then they do to hurt it through drug addiction. By eliminating these drugs from the US would cause doctors to search for new alternative medicines that do not currently exist and could have more harmful side effects.