Back Pain - Percocette and Poker

[mockingbird]

I have been playing for a couple months on-line at Party. Recently I play mostly 2/4 HE but also 1/2 and .5/1. My problem is that I almost always win in the morning, before by back pain really hits and before I have taken any percocette. And, surprise surprise, more often than not I lose in the afternoon and evening after I have had to take narcotics for the pain.

I am aware of this and am much better now about not playing after taking drugs - and believe me, percocette are powerful drugs. The pharmacist told me that the 7.5 mg pills I am prescribed are about 10 times as strong as codeine.

My presciption 12 months ago was for three 7.5 mg pills per day. This is 4.5 regular percocette. I needed and was taking all of them. Back pain can be agonizing and I am no wimp when it comes to physical pain, just the opposite in fact, I have a very high tolerance for pain. A couple years ago when I was 32 I had open heart surgery to replace a congenitally defective heart valve. I had the surgery on a Tues and by Fri I had stopped taking all prescription pain killers and was just using Tylenal and Motrin. I am not trying to be macho here - I'm a woman anyway - I'm just trying to make the point that I am not taking these pills for fun.

Anyway, over the last year I have done a great deal of physical therapy, see a chiropractor every week, do yoga and pilates etc. My back is greatly improved. I am now only prescribed 2 of the same pills per day and usually only need 1 to 1.5 per day.

So in my mind 1/2 or 3/4ths of a percocette is not a lot of medication. No one can tell if I've taken it, I am used to it and need it for the pain. I delude myself I can play after taking these - that I have a very high tolerance for drugs - I do, or that it has been 6 hours since my last dose - it still affects me, or sometimes I just feel good and want to play - a big mistake.

The problem is it affects my critical thinking and decision making abilities and my poker play. But, like when drunk, when high, you dont always realize that you are high.

Then I make bad plays and post the tardish hards I played while high. Having people on this site think I'm a tard is a distant second to the problem of losing money though.

Anyway, I'm still working on getting better and off the drugs entirely. In the mean time, I want to get real with myself about the affects these drugs are having on my playing.

I play too many hours on-line anyway. So there is no reason to not committ myself to NEVER playing on a day after I have taken a percocette or even part of one.

In a way this experience has helped me. It makes me see just how much these drugs are affecting my quality of life in general and how much I want to get off of them.

All, (non-smart alecky), suggestion, observations, similiar experiences or just general reactions are welcome and appreciated.

Thanks

[xniNja]

I would be interested to know how you can definitively distinguish starting to play poorly as a result of the percocet or just from playing too long, being distracted by the back-pain, or a variety of other factors.

This comes from the perspective of someone who knows some players who are in fact drug users and play virtually identical on/off drugs; or even better, in some cases, as the certain drugs they use allow them to be more relaxed, or focused, or what not.

I guess my only advice is to monitor yourself well enough that you can make a conclusive judgment as to whether or not it is truly the percocet that "causes" your ability to play to decrease. I would lean towards saying it isn't necessarily to blame.

[mockingbird]

Thanks for the response. It definitely isnt the only factor that can and does decrease my playing ability. Being in pain definitely is -EV but that is so easy to spot and to stop playing - it's no fun when I'm in pain anyway.

And being tired causes my play to deteriorate as well.

But I plan to refrain from playing entirely after taking percs and then monitor for other -EV factors.

At first I thought that the games were just harder in the evenings, is this true?????

What drugs do your friends take that help them to play? Maybe amphetamines would have that affect, I dont know.

But I was finishing grad school when I started with the percs and believe me, I dont think as clearly.

[nrinker]

This doesn't answer your question or anything but...

My neck hurts pretty badly and has. Sometimes I can't even walk, I would love to get medicine like that. What did it take to convince the doc to hook you up?

[xniNja]

Different games on different sites are harder/easier at different times. (How useless a sentence, huh?) Seriously though, you have to take some time to scope out the right table.

Different drugs help different people. (Damn, I swear I didn't plan on writing like this.) A lot of people I know smoke lots of weed before/during playing poker, it helps them relax, be more patient, etc. I know some who do coke because it helps them stay focused/awake for long periods of time. None of my friends are really meth heads, but that may have a similar effect- but I would think might make you uneasy and playing the game more difficult.

I'm not trying to advocate drug use for poker players; just saying there are many successful people who use drugs, and it may not necessarily affect your game negatively. If your personal experience disagrees with this, by no means am I trying to argue with you.

[revots33]

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My neck hurts pretty badly and has. Sometimes I can't even walk, I would love to get medicine like that. What did it take to convince the doc to hook you up?

[/ QUOTE ]

JMHO, but before you start taking some very powerful drugs for your neck pain, you might want to try a chiropractor, a physical therapist, etc. A book that really helped my neck pain is "7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life: How to Rapidly Relieve Back and Neck Pain" by McKenzie. It has some great exercises for relieving neck pain and improving posture.

If you play a lot of poker (especially on a laptop like I do), it's very important to be mindful of your posture, and do some neck exercises occasionally to break up the tension. Before I read McKenzie's book, I'd spend hours slumped on my couch, with no support for my lower back and my neck craned down at my laptop. No wonder my neck hurt! Correct posture is very important if you sit for long periods of time. Otherwise back and neck pain are eventually inevitable.

[mockingbird]

Ya, I didnt mean to get onto a "Hey, can drugs help your play?" track. Drugs, as we all know, when not taken for medical purposes are extremely dangerous and often destroy people's lives. Even if they did help with poker play, and in my experience they definitely don't, it wouldn't be worth it.

Anyway, thanks for the response. Hope your friends can get off the pot, coke, meth, or whatever before it kills them.

[mockingbird]

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My neck hurts pretty badly and has. Sometimes I can't even walk, I would love to get medicine like that. What did it take to convince the doc to hook you up?


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JMHO, but before you start taking some very powerful drugs for your neck pain, you might want to try a chiropractor, a physical therapist, etc. A book that really helped my neck pain is "7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life: How to Rapidly Relieve Back and Neck Pain" by McKenzie. It has some great exercises for relieving neck pain and improving posture.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with his advice about pursuing other avenues first. The physical therapy and chiropractor both helped me alot. Also I have an exercise ball for strengthening the back and abdomen and stretching, (not sure of the name), elastic bands for strenthening exercises, a foam roller which I roll on and it cracks my back.

LOL, I know this sounds a little wierd, but I was willing to try anything to get out of pain.

Also, I just experimented on my own to see what stretches and exercises helped.

Pilates has been helpful as well, I know most men think a Pilates or Yoga class is kind of sissified, but if it helps, get over it and do the smart thing. Besides, I don't know if your married or committed, but those classes are a good place to meet women/girls if you're not.

As a last resort, I get the medication from a pain management MD. I think she used to be an anesthesiologist, not sure. But I went to my regular internist for about 6 or 8 months talking about the pain before I got the refereral to the pain management MD. I also did physical therapy for three months and had an MRI that showed a herniated disk and some other problems before getting the referral. If your doc is unsympathetic or uncooperative, I'm assuming you are telling the truth here, change docs. A regular internist can give you rx for a few months or somewhat longer but not indefinitely. They monitor those meds very closely these days and the doc could get in trouble.

I want to get to where I dont need them anymore, it was a last resort. About a year ago I spent about 3 weeks when I could barely get out of bed because of pain.

So if you need them you need them. Also, I think that getting them allowed me to be pain free enough to do the physical therapy exercises that eventually helped me.

Havent had any today, it's almost 2:00 pm here and ive been up and about since around 6:00 am, and no pain at all, so things can get better.

Good Luck to you.

[mockingbird]

Now I'm kind of sorry I started this druggy post.

This was not the direction I had in mind at all. Didn't think it would get into - "What drugs will help me play?" or "Where can I get drugs like that?" - I know the posters didnt intend their posts to sound like that either.

Oh Well

Thanks Again

[Jeebus]

My freshman year of college, I fell off a trampoline and killed my back. I used to eat half a percocette and go to clas...I learned more then than I ever have because I found myself more interested and stuck in what was going on much more than normally. I actually cared about calculus rather than just trying to get my A in it. I will also say that I smoke while studying for tests. I am a history major and I find that I am much more interested in the books I am reading. The story becomes much deeper some how. But what does that have to do with cards?

Unlike being drunk, some highs, such as those we are tlaking about, can make you much more interested or concerned with what you are doing. While you may not pay perfect attention (the high can mess with perception) you are engrossed in the game much more. With this comes the desire to overplay and to use ideas much more. Unlike when you are drunk and make drunkenly aggressive moves, being high tends to make me, at least, try to make way too many intelligent moves on people who can't possibly understand. Once I learned to calm it all down it helped much immensely.

I am now one of those players that play better high after smoking alittle grass. It took getting a bag in Vegas to score my first real profits and I immediatly turned -100 into +1500 within two days of that.

Thats just my 2 cents or something.