 [ Symptoms ] i was choked now have difficulty swallowing soar throat and feel pressure [ Disease ] codeine and hydrocodone can be very harsh on the stomach and a lot of people complain that it makes their stomach upset and that they do not feel right and that it contains a lot of pain in their stomach just alone if you have ulcers it definitely will probably be something that you would not want to use because of the fact that you already have some type of irritation to your stomach so that is where you have to work with your physician on figuring out what might be some other alternatives there may be some pain medications that are not as harsh on the stomach that could be used in the case of using tylenol that is okay but to be honest with you for severe back pain we might need to find out a little bit more and as the pharmacist i might actually ask this patient what other medications are they on are they seeing a specialist have they had scans done of an mri or a cat scan to find out what is really causing the problems and based on that figuring out what medications may be appropriate working with their other physicians healthcare providers coming together and figuring out what might be the best treatments for this patient is probably the best answer