Opana ER - my friend says she snorrts opana and began abusing them because she says they dont work?

BRRMARS is exactly correct! That (snorting) is addictive, abusive behavior and she is heading down a VERY dark road. You are correct in your assumption that she will-God forbid-be found dead one day. Crushing them defeats the time release mechanism and snorting the powder slams the drug into the brain like a bullet! She could get a toxic dose very easily and go into respiratory arrest and die! It happens all the time! She desperately needs to seek help. She has a problem with her meds. If she is truly hurting, she needs to speak with her Dr. Her behavior is not pointing to pain relief however, it is pointing to addiction and seeking a high. I think perhaps she is deluding herself to justify her behavior. She needs to seek treatment before she kills herself!! Good Luck to you-you are a good friend for being concerned.

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If you were a really good friend you might want to speak to her Dr and let him know what is going on! She may get really mad and it may destroy a friendship but you may save her life! Once she is away from the drugs hopefully she will realize you did it out of love for her! If it were my good friend, that IS what I would do if talking to her did no good-I would call her Dr and report to him what she is doing. He probably WILL cut off her supply but hopefully he will offer her treatment for addiction. Just because she has addiction issues doesnt mean she cant get relief from her pain. With tolerance you need more and more medication to get the high feeling-she WILL end up overdosing eventually!

I am also on Opana ER, at the point that she realized that the medication did not give appropriate pain control instead of using the drug in a way in which it was not designed to be used what she should have done was have an open and honest discussion with her physician, you see now she is in a position till she is going to have to have this discusssion with the doctor and pain control is difficult at best, now she has to explain why she resorted to using this drug in this manner, I will be the first to tell you I have had problems with Opana not always working but it's so much easier to deal with a problem such as this in a open honest way with the prescribing doctor and if she felt she could not talk with him then he is not the doctor that she needs, My doctor told me from the get-go just always be honest and tell me like it is and thats the way I approach her with problems such as this,

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A patient that can feel that they can approach the physician with a problem of a drug not working needs to find one that she can trust, It isn't for me to judge other than to say if you make a choice to use a drug in a way other than it should be then at some point in time she will have to talk with and explain to the doctor first that the drug didn't work and secondly explain that she is snorting the drug. the longer she puts it off the more difficult the problem can become, honesty is the best policy especially when you are dealing with narcotic medications. I wish her the very best, and this should be a lesson as to what to do if she ever encounters a problem like this again far better to explain that she is having problems with the drug not working than to perhaps invent a way of using the drug that could be a risk to her and her health as a whole. this is another example of why doctors hesitate about prescribing drugs that control pain for patients as a whole, again I do mean to sound harsh but patients who take situations into their own hands instead of being open and forth right with physicians can make it more difficult for others who also suffer from chronic pain, again I hope that she will talk with the doctor and tell him why she did what she did!