Cough, wheeze...

[julesjones]

I've got a throat infection, which isn't doing much for my concentration. I don't actually feel that terrible, but the stuffiness and dripping nose kept me awake on Thursday night, and although I got a decent night's sleep last night I suspect that may be the last for a week or so, as the cough started today. So word count on the story has gone down, and my usenet reading is at best intermittent. (I've only just seen the thread on rasf about brittle steel; if someone reminds me after I get home next week I'll dig up some references.)

Still working away on the New Year's Eve story, now up to around 19,000 words. Nothing on Sunday, because I took the chance to get my website updated. 280 words on Mon, 790 Tues, 400 Wed, 900 Thur, 500 last night. I doubt if I'll get anything done tonight -- dragging myself down to Boots to get a bottle of pholcodine linctus pretty much wiped me out for the rest of the day. At least I am currently in a civilised country, and can buy a bottle of pholcodine linctus over the counter, or indeed at all. I suspect that I'd get marked down as a drug abuser if I asked my US GP for a prescription. This is assuming that I'm not already marked down as one for being honest when asked what I've previously found most effective for treating my IBS. (Kaolin and codeine is a standard OTC remedy in the UK, but an Evil And Immoral Drug Of Abuse in the US.)

I want to tweak an existing story before submitting it to sacchig for her Suspect Thoughts guest editor stint, but I suspect that's going to have to wait at least a week. Sorry Sacchi, your chances of getting a brand new story in time are pretty much non-existent at this point, but I did warn you that was likely to be the case. :-)

Comments

[sacchig.livejournal.com]

That's fine (not the cold, but the tweaking of existing stories). I know the timing is absurd, and I'll be lucky to get some undiscovered gems already lurking out there.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Ooops. Didn't know codeine was illegal in the US.

[sacchig.livejournal.com]

Nah, not illegal, but you need a prescription. I wonder how many partial bottles of codeine Tylenol and codeine cough syrup far past their expiration dates are cluttering up my medicine closet--but I don't wonder enough to clean up the clutter.

[julesjones]

In the UK you can get low doses of the milder opiates over the counter without a prescription (although the pharmacist does have to be present, tough luck if there's only one on duty that day and they're on lunchbreak). It's also normally easy to get a prescription for stronger stuff if you need it, and doctors can even write scripts for heroin if they can clinically justify it (it's a better painkiller than morphine for some cancer patients). Over the counter versions packaged as painkillers are usually only available in combination with NSAIDs like aspririn or paracetemol, but a doctor can write a scipt for codeine on its own.

In the US you need a prescription for any opiates, and it can be difficult to get codeine even if you're justified in having it, because it's seen as a drug that's often abused even when legally prescribed. My dentist normally prescribes vicodine (paracetemol and a different opiate) as a strong painkiller, and I only get codeine/paracetemol because shortly after my first vicodine tablet I was throwing up violently, and shortly after that I was back at the surgery saying that if they didn't give me a codeine script I wasn't taking anything, because the side-effects of the vicodine were worse than the pain... He says that he can't prescribe codeine on its own without using a different prescription form and risking being investigated for supplying drugs if he uses too many of those forms.

My US doctor freaked when he heard that my UK doctor had happily prescribed me 30mg tablets of codeine for my IBS, so that I had the convenience of tablets without having to take the risk of taking aspirin that I didn't actually need. Of course, I could have bought kaolin and codeine mixture over the counter, I'd only asked for codeine tablets because they're easier to use when travelling. :-)

I can legally import the stuff into the US as long as it's declared on the customs form and in personal use quantities. I asked the customs people at San Francisco about it several years ago, because I was worried about carrying codeine without a prescription, and they said it's not a problem as long as it was bought in a country where a prescription isn't needed, and you declare it. So I have this pefectly legal stash of non-prescription opiates in my medicine cabinet...

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Hope the cold's improved by now.

[julesjones]

Still badly congested, but I'm feeling much better than I was on Saturday. I just hope the decongestant works tomorrow...