To worry about cocodamol

[AnotherKaz]

I take cocodamol for period pains, migraines etc, when I have them. I don’t take them daily but love the feeling they give when I do take them, am I at risk of becoming addicted?

What feeling do they give you?
How many would you say to take per month?

Potentially yes, can you use a different medication for period pain? And how frequent are the migraines?

If you love the feeling then yes, that's an issue.

They just make me feel a little floaty, I would probably take about 4 per month.

Get other painkillers use tend machines... acupuncture is good too.
Frequent migraine needs preventatives and relievers like sumatriptain

Same same OP.

i love the feeling of the 30/500mg but I only take them very very sparingly.

i don’t know that liking the feeling necessarily means you’re addicted

I only take the OTC ones.

I've gone through phases of taking 8 a day with severe pain. I've come off them many times. I would say when you don't take them often you get a floaty feel but when you take regularly you don't get that. That having been said I've had physical withdrawal from them a few times, shaking, hot/cold etc. If you think you're in danger you should seek alternative pain killers.

If you feel that way it’s a bad sign. But it’s good you only take them when you need to.

I find it interesting that people get so addicted to Cocodamol. I have lupus and I’m prescribed the highest dose Cocodamol 30/500 and Tramadol (I take one in the day and one at night) and I don’t find either of them addictive. I can give or take them apart from the fact they do help with my pain. I often just take maybe one or two Cocodamol a week. They don’t give me any warm or calm feelings.

It’s good that you recognise that in yourself.

if you get migraine, see your GP for proper medication. Codeine / co-codamol is specifically NOT supposed to be used for migraine (despite bloody Migraleve being touted on the market) because it's just not very effective.

Have a chat with the same GP about your use of codeine and consider whether there's an issue already with medication overuse headaches.

Codeine is metabolised to morphine (approximately 10%, although this can be higher in super metabolisers). This is why it's potentially additictive, the same as any other opiod pain killers eg tramadol

I'm a pharmacist who has always thought of codeine as a rather rubbish painkiller. I recently took two 30/500 co-codamol and felt proper off my face. It was quite frightening

Codiene addiction is a real addiction and codeine isn't great for period pain. You want something like naproxen(same family as ibuprofen but stronger) which will inhibit the prostoglandins causing the period pain. Codiene will only exacerbate the nausea associated with migraines