Hello, I have a very good friend that has been on Percocet 10/325 and Xanax 1? (I guess it would be maybe 1mg)for 29 years. For the past several years his monthly prescription has been 180 Percocet and 120 Xanax. he has been disabled for approximately 29 years. He has never had any issues with any of his doctors regarding any type of drug abuse with the Percocet and Xanax. In December 2016 his Doctor that had been prescribing this medicine to him retired and referred my friend onto another doctor. this doctor continued with the same medicine and amounts. My friend had a follow-up appointment in February with his new doctor. Before he left for his appointment he took 1 Percocet and 4 Tylenol. He has both the Percocet and Tylenol in pill organizer container that he started using a couple weeks ago as he has MANY different prescriptions pills he takes daily. Since the Tylenol pill is white and oblong shaped the EXACT SAME as his Percocet pills he accidentally took 4 Percocet and 1 Tylenol instead of 4 Tylenol and 1 Percocet y the time he got into see his doctor the Percocet had taken effect and his doctor could immediately tell that there was something wrong with him. After the doctor, as well as my friend, examined the bill container and found that there were 3 missing Percocet from the count my friend tried to explain that the Tylenol was section of the container was right next to the Percocet section. He asked the doctor if he could distinguish one pill from the other in his container and the doctor could not without looking at what was written on each of the pills. Since this occurrence the doctor did not fire my friend but when he went to have his Percocet and Xanax refilled he was told that his doctor had discontinued both the Percocet and Xanax and was referring him to Pain Management. This doctor did not do any type of step down procedure on a man that has been taking these two medications for almost 30 years. He is having horrible withdraws and extreme depression to the point I m very worried about his well-being and his state of mind. Without the pain medication he has to basically lie in bed or just sit in his recliner. He has NO QUALITY OF LIFE. Without his Xanax he must experience several panic attacks daily and is constantly anxious and very nervous and on edge ALL THE TIME NOW. My questions to you are: 1) Because my friend made 1 mistake in 29 years I do not feel his medication should have been permanently taken from him. Why do you think this doctor did this? 2) Isn t there some kind of suggestive protocol that doctors usually follow when taking a patient off highly addictive medicines? 3) Isn t there a lot of adverse effects and extreme symptoms that can occur when someone goes cold turkey . 4) Is there anyway to appeal the doctors decision and possibly have it reversed? The doctor is owned by one of our hospitals. Could my friend go above the doctors head and have his medical chart reviewed by someone who is higher up at the hospital? PLEASE HELP US FIND THE ANSWERS THAT WILL ALLOW MY FRIEND A HIGHER QUALITY OF LIFE.