Is There An OTC That Has Similar Effects To Hydrocodone?

Posted on Tue, 25 Mar 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 Answered on

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : Is there an OTC that has similar effects to hydrocodone, or is there an herbal equivalent? My left orbital was shattered in an accident and the hospital never set it right because of insurance bolderdash, so I have a constant irritation pressing on my nose, eyeball, and septum, and I've been using hydrocodone for a while, but I was just wondering about the alternates so that the insurance company doesn't get hinky with supplying it. I only use it when I'm idle--no driving, no machinery, no situation that would involve any problems, although the hyrdrocodone doesn't really have a narcotic effect on me at all, just enough to placate the pleasure center, so I can get some relief. And the OTC pain relievers obviously don't do the trick, plus I don't want the liver problems seeing that the pain is constant and I need some relief from it. That's why I'm looking for a close-to substitute.

Answered by Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj (11 hours later)

Brief Answer: Hi, Meds, won't help, need to fix that Orbit Detailed Answer: Hi XXXXXXX My name is Vinay. Thanks for coming to HealthCareMagic. I've gone over your question a couple of time and discussed it with some of my colleagues who run a pain management clinic. So I'm going to discuss this situation with you in two parts. The first part is a direct answer to your questions Is there an herbal equivalent to hydrocodone: No Is there any non-narcotic substitute to hydrocodone or dilaudid: No I really really wish there was! Second part: Are we handling this issue the right way? So the pain started after a traumatic injury to the left orbit. Now what you said was that it was never set right due to an insurance issue. Well Why can't we set it right now? Has your insurance totally disavowed this issue? Can we get another surgical opinion and repair the orbit all together? I mean, if you reason with the insurance company and talk to them about the long term benefit of reducing your drug requirements if the orbit is fixed, wouldn't that make more sense than putting you on ever increasing doses of narcotics? If your insurance is against the idea of spending the money on repair of this issue in the US. What about going to another country and getting it repaired. It's called medical tourism. Now I don't run a medical tourism company or anything. And I'm not advertising for India, but I do get alot of patients from different parts of the world and on average we can cut the costs of surgery here by about 90% as compared to the US and about 60% as compared to the UK without a loss in quality. Think about it. I wish I did have some magical herb that I could give you that would help with your pain. But the only herb i can think of is illegal in most parts of the world... so that's not worth talking about... :-) Take care. Feel free to follow-up with me whenever you would like. Vin

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar