[MAD]

I have had neck surgery and they fixed a herniated disk. I have a plate in the back of my neck with screws unfortunately that didn't fix the problem. I have a lot of pain in the left side of my neck. I have had PT twice and I have been to a pain management. I have also had steriod injections 4 times. The problem is I'm trying to beat the pain without hurting!! I'm on the Duragesic patch 50/ug/h. I'm suppose to change it every 4 days but I wait until I can't stand the pain anymore before I replace it which is usually about 6 or 7 days. I'm sure I'm addicted to it but I don't know what else to do. What are the symtoms of withdrawl? This has been on going for 4 yrs and the Drs. don't know what to do with me. Please help me.

[lefty]

The symptoms withdrawing from Duragesic are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, anxiety, and shivering.

There is a website called pain.com which may be helpful.

Good luck.

[kellrx]

The duragesic patch is only designed to last for 72 hours, I would show the package info to the dr, at least that is a start. It is more difficult to become addicted to those patches because they are designed to releas slowly. Adding more pain medications may only increase your possibilty of addiction and will not solve the problem. Drugs like ibuprofen and aleve along with that patch may help quite a bit, or RX drugs like celebrex or vioxx are very good too. Unfortunately, the only way to solve your problem is probably more surgery. Good luck.

[MAD]

I'm also allergic to all nsaids. Thanks you so much for the information though!
Marsha