Hope that fixed the aches and pains QV. The former isn't something I've ever tried, we don't use it (hydrocodone) in british medical practice for some reason, I'm not sure why, as it would make a good alternative (and somewhat stronger) for those who for such reasons as enzyme deficiencies, cannot make use of codeine, and those who either cannot take or who hate tramadol (which in any case cannot be used at doses over a few hundred mg, due to seizure risk, its fucking shite stuff IMO, I like my opiates, but tramadol is a crap wannabe)
We have dihydrocodeine as the step up from codeine here, but it really isn't all that much (maybe twice, twice and a bit if your lucky) more effective than codeine, and its fairly shortlived, I used to be on it for my knee but switched (at the time) to oxycontin as the DHC was wearing off so fast that I couldn't avoid withdrawal symptoms no matter how religiously I stuck to dosing, and IMO an XR form of a prodrug is a daft idea if the metabolism is rate-limited, as codeine and afaik (may possibly be wrong here) DHC are.
Failing that, the other mid-range opioid we use is meptazinol, which is only a partial agonist at Mu-opioid receptors, and will put somebody in a really nasty precipitated withdrawal if they are already used to a normal opioid. And even if not, from experience it gave me the most brutal gutsache I've ever had the misfortune to encounter, short of one bout of food poisoning that actually put me in hospital twice, not long after taking it, I almost collapsed it was that bad. IIRC I still have some derivative form, I think, the propionyl or benzoyl ester sitting on the shelf if I haven't thrown that away, if its still around after all these years I have no pressing desire to try it
