I live in the U.S., first off.
I was prescribed a narcotic following a minor surgery. I’m not going to say what kind of surgery that was and please don’t ask. I’ll just go ahead and say that the prescription was for hydrocodone/acetaminophen 5-35. I’m worried about having been prescribed this because I know there’s a state-wide electronic system used to monitor all prescriptions—accessible by all doctors, pharmacies, etc. anywhere else in my state—and I know that system is used to flag people for prescription drug abuse. I also know that medications like this are highly frowned upon by the healthcare system itself and even more so by the authorities. I assume it’s entirely possible that I look suspicious according to that system now.
I’ve only taken a three pills so far, out of ten total. If I take the other seven back to the pharmacy to have them destroyed, they’ll make a record of that, I would imagine.
What I mean is that I could just stop taking them now but never tell anyone that, and anyone looking at my medical history in the future would see that I picked up ten pills from the pharmacy, and that’s all they would see, and so I took the entire script as far as they know; whereas if I take the other seven back, and they make another entry in their records about that, that’s in effect like plus ten and then minus seven, and that way I would theoretically have three pills counted against my medical history instead of ten; right?
I could be way overanalyzing this, but frankly, I’m already terrified to take another one anyway. I honestly don’t like how they make me feel, which is good, but it would be just my luck that I’d take one more pill and start liking it immediately. I know what happens to people who end up liking this stuff, and how easy it is to end up liking it; I’ve seen it. It’s also that I’m still relatively young, and my health’s already bad enough at this point as it is, that I already know they’ll eventually put me in the ground with at least one major surgery, and I don’t want to have to get through that with ibuprofen because I’ve already blown it.
Pharmacy professional weighing in.
You have absolutely nothing to worry about. Controls are monitored for what’s filled. Like another user said, if you take them back the pharmacy will just destroy them, nothing is documented. There are often self-serve drop boxes for meds in pharmacies, look to see where they might be in your area (Most of the time it’s a pharmacy, but can be elsewhere). Nothing is reported with med disposal.
Gonna say as well that 10 tabs is absolutely nothing. 5-325 can come in bottles of 500 tabs, and seeing prescriptions for month-long supplies for chronic pain users is pretty common.
The drug reporting watches for patient safety by making sure that a patient isn’t getting multiple prescriptions (potentially at different pharmacies, or different prescribers) that could interact with each other. Let’s say you take Oxycodone 5mg three times daily chronically. You get in an accident and the emergency room prescribes you Norco (your hydro/APAP 5-325). The monitoring tool lets them know that you’re already on an opioid and to either change therapy or verify the additional dose with your PCP.
Anyways I’m rambling. Long story short, you’ve got the least suspicious prescription. Nothing to worry about.