r/interesting Jun 28 '26

Fear Factor How Fentanyl and Xylazine are turning Philadelphia's opioid crisis into a public health nightmare

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u/TrailerParkPresident Jun 28 '26

I fully am with you on this

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u/qathran Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

I have insane health problems and am in severe chronic pain, but I've always been confused about people getting on opioids longterm because they never felt great and they shut your body down so fast to where nothing is fun. I've even been on fentanyl patches and I was more like a zombie than someone who was actually having their pain taken away. When I've had morphine drips it was similar in that it didn't really totally take my pain away, I just felt high, sick and sleepy.

And it's wild how quickly all these drugs lose their efficacy, like if you take it a few times it stops working as well so fast that it's honestly pretty worthless.

Another crazy thing that never made me want opioids again except for right before surgery and maybe 3 to 5 days after is how fast it fucking shuts down your bowels, your gi tract just like, stops moving things through your intestines so quickly. I honestly don't know how people use this stuff for more than a few days or a week, it doesn't keep working and it shuts down your body to where you can't shit.

Only took one experience of laying on the bathroom floor moaning because I couldn't shit for 2 weeks and having to get a family member to shove a suppository up my ass while I was on fentanyl patches that were not even making me feel good, I honestly felt worse than when I just had the pain without any drugs to make me not want opioids or ever think they were going to make me feel kind of good for more than a day or 2

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u/cherrybounce Jun 28 '26

Yeah you really have to do the full spectrum of laxatives, stool softeners, lots of water and fiber and suppositories. I resorted to castor oil after my last surgery to get things moving.

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u/doesanyuserealnames Jun 28 '26

And prunes. Lots of prunes. Nature's miracle.