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Originally Posted by cuda340  I'm on 25mcg patches only been on them for two weeks today.I also take 10mg percocet 3x a day for break though pain.And I also take .5 Xanax 4x a day.I have neuropathy in both legs. I had a nerve block done 6/26/08.I don't like the feeling I'm getting short of beath I work in a plastic factory and the averge temp. in the shop is 95+ and I work 12hr shifts. Only being on them for 2 weeks will I have w/d?I was fine on 10mg percocet 1 every 4hrs.This is a new doctor I've only seen twice.He is a pain man. doctor. Is it that I have to take the fentanyl or do I have a choice when I talk to him?  |
Cuda340, I am currently on Fentanyl. I apologize in advance for this post being lengthy, but I am decidedly very passionate and biased about this subject, and I tend to have the gift of gab in general...lol... so... Without trying to get too much into my very long medical history, It was only after trying every form of alternative medicine, like homeopathy, acupuncture, acupressure, hands on healing, prayer, (you name it- I tried it,) and I also had over 20 proceedures/and or/surgeries performed, (all of them unsuccessful or made my problem worse)
before I finally headed down the dreaded path to opiate pain relief. I was on many different meds prior to the fentanyl, but now I feel the Dr. had so many more options he could have experimented with before jumping off the cliff to the Fentanyl. (If you look for my other "threads", you will read why opiate pain management is probably going to be for the rest of my life, as well as the wonderful help and suggestions offered to me by some very knowledgeable people here...).
My strong heartfelt suggestion is that you try
everything imaginable before you specifically go down the fentanyl road. Despite the relief I experienced, and the ability to participate in "life" for the first time in many many years, I am very sorry I did it. Like you, I initially didn't ask my doctor alot of questions about this drug. I
thought I had no choice but to take whatever it was that he said I had to take, because after all, he
was the specialist and he was the first and only Doctor I had seen in over 12 yrs. who
correctly diagnosed my problems
and gave me medication that allowed me to get out of bed and start to live my life again for the
first time in 12 yrs. And after being in pain from the time I was 16 and ending up bedridden by the time I was 24, the very fact that I was now able to stand up, grocery shop, hug my family members, or hold my baby, was nothing short of a God given miricle as far as I was concerned in my mind.
clearly this Dr. a gift from God himself
for being the
only one I had seen to correctly diagnois me and relieve my pain adequately at the time. So I just believed
everything he told me initially.
HAD I KNOWN THEN HOW MUCH MORE POWERFUL FENTANYL WAS COMPARED TO MORPHINE, OR ANY OTHER DRUG ON THE MARKET, I
WOULD HAVE NEVER ALLOWED HIM TO PUT ME ON IT WITHOUT EXAUSTING EVERY SINGLE OTHER DRUG ON THE MARKETBECAUSE IF THERE WAS EVER AN EMERGENCY IN MY FUTURE AND I HAD TO
GET OFF THIS MEDICINE FOR SOME REASON OR SWITCH TO SOMETHING ELSE, WHAT WOULD I USE TO DO THAT? - WITHOUT SUFFERING TREMENDOUSLY AND NEEDLESSLY? THERE WAS NOTHING EQUAL TO IT ON THE MARKET - SO, HONESTLY, WHERE
DOES ONE GO FROM THAT POINT??? I know
now that there were soooo many other meds out there he could have tried on me
before the Fentanyl, but I think because it was relatively new, it became the "in fashion"drug to prescribe so to speak at the time so all the pain Dr.'s were using it...
My begining dose all those years ago (after trying
oxycontin, dilaudid, and a few other unsucessful meds and being extraordinarilly opiate tolerant) was 100ug q 48 w/perc. for breakthrough. Then after about 2 yrs. of that, I had to bump up to 125ug q 48. w/perc. for breakthrough. About 2yrs. later It went to 150ug q 48 but now with ACTIQC 600 for breakthrough. Four years later (and a total of over 10 years now)
I AM NOW ON 200UG Q 48 AND ACTIQC 800 FOR BREAKTHROUGH EVERY 4-6HRS or as needed... As I said before, now that I have done some research, I strongly feel my Dr. should have tried even morphine before the fentanyl. Fentanyl should be used last just because of its potency and because there is nothing equal to it on the market. Had he had me on a different opiate, like morphine or something, I believe in my heart, I would not be at such a high dose right now and i would not be having some of the problems I have talked about in other threads.
The bottom line is this, Fentanyl is so much more powerful than morphine, that It is my belief and experience that there is nothing harder or more unpleasant to detox from once the body is physiolgically dependent. I mean this in all sincerity. There have been times where I went into withdrawls for a variety of reasons such as the medicine not absorbing into my skin due to excessive sweating in the summer, or faulty patches, and for the first time in my life, I was a hallucinating, cramping, and experiencing the WORST WITHDRAWLS OF MY LIFE.
WORSE THAN ANY OTHER OPIATE I EVER EXPERIENCED WD'S FROM - BAR NONE. I don't know if you have been on it long enough to go through that, but it doesn't take long that's for sure, and even 25ug's is horrific.
Even though it delivers excellent pain relief with the ease of only having to change the patch every 48-72 hours,
I would never reccomend this to anyone who was not a hospice patient or who had not tried every single other opiate (or non opiate) prior.
Even if you are only starting out at 25ug's, remember, all opiate users become tolerant at some point and it will not work as well at some point at its current dose, and
then the only way to go is up up up with this stuff.
It is my understanding, that at least with other opiates, you might be able to switch em' around for a while before having to go up. (ie: vicodin isn't working so you switch to percocet but at the same dose, -
but since one may be synthetic and one may not, you kind of trick the brains receptor sites into believing you are on a higher dose and a higher class of opiate (or something like that...), and get better pain relief for a while longer now because you are not tolerant to the percocets yet...and so on...) I'm certainly no expert, and I'm sure someone here may correct me and maybe say switching around like that is not the "proper" thing to do medically for some reason or something,
but I sure wish I could go back and do it that way instead of being in my situation now... Good luck to you, I hope I didn't come off as someone trying to scare the hell outta anyone,
and I certainly don't mean to "preach" or sound like some kind of hypocrite or something, I just hope to prevent anyone from experiencing the downside of what I have been through, as it has been hell, but do hope you find a way to control your pain, and LIVE your life, because it is definently
not a spectator sport.
I want off Fentanyl patches 
Been where you are, wish I rcvd better advice then!! 
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