Question: I have a prescription of hydrocodone 10/325 from an overseas pharmacy. It does have the Watson 853 on one side with the vertical score line on the other side. The "Watson 853" imprint seems slightly different from the imprint on the pills I've gotten with prescriptions in the US and the pills have an odd smell and taste. Should I be concerned?

Dr. Tayal,

Thank you so much for answering my question. Please don't think I'm a bad person or an addict because I bought pills online. I'm a mother of two wonderful boys (5 & 10) and have been married to a delightful man for 20 years. I'm a stay home mom but I do work part time as a CPA, only about 15 hours a month but then I bump up to 40 or 50+ hours PER WEEK during tax time (Jan 1st - April 15). It has become almost impossible for me during tax time due to how much it aggravates the area at the back of my head and the constant level of intense pain it causes. I've been to so many doctors and specialists. I've had injections in the vertebrae in my neck several times and also deeper into the epidural space. I did see a neurologist and he did prescribe the medication you mentioned but it was not helpful? He also did Botox injections. They actually made the pain worse. After the fact he said it didn't surprise him since the cause of my pain really isn't migraine-so very frustrating. The most recent thing I've done was having an occipital nerve block about 5 weeks ago and it WAS helpful for about 3 weeks. All the doctors I've seen (haven't seen any in several months) seem to each have only one thing to try and then all they offer is to take pain medication 4 times a day, every day, all year long and that isn't a solution or an option to me. I AM needing pain meds now, just for a few weeks until I get thru tax season work, but to get any more than 10 or 15, I would have to go to a pain clinic here, which is very expensive and it takes months to get in . And, because my pain level does diminish to a manageable level the other 9 months of the year, the pain clinic sees it more as acute pain and not chronic. It's all so very frustrating and time consuming, which is what led me to a search on the Internet to try to find a reliable pharmacy from which to get pain meds.

The pills I asked about were not good. Thankfully I only took a half at first, felt no effect so I took the other half. When my husband came home he found me asleep at my desk and he says I was "out of it" for several hours, slurring my words, asking the same questions over and over, and I have absolutely no memory of that time period of about six hours after I took the last half-it was like a sleeping pill/amnesiac, though I've never taken either.

I have two questions: my orthopedic doctor's last recommendation to me was that he refer me to a neuro surgeon to see if he could remove the scar tissue and/or clip the occipital nerve. What are your thoughts on that?

Also, is there a reliable Internet pharmacy you can recommend to me that is legitimate, reasonably priced, and offering what is ordered instead of a fake or substitute of some sort? Can you help me? I could email to you the results from MRI's, CT scans, x-rays,etc. to validate what I've said about my condition.
I meant to say five MONTHS ago on the nerve block, not five weeks ago.
Thank you for reading this and considering my questions-I'm very grateful.
XXXXXXX