New Opana Is Out Now - March 15 (Page 3)
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I got my new Opana Prescription this week and it is the new formulation. The old ones were six sided and the new one is round.

The new formulation, that the FDA approved, is supposed to be the same quality as the old Opana we are used to. I hope so.

I am going to include the links to the articles that discuss this at the bottom, the latest article is directly from the makers of Opana and is from February.

The old stock of Opana is all supposed to be gone from the shelves by now and the pharmacists are all supposed to be using the new formulation.

Let us know here how you think the new stuff is working for you. Is it the same as the old stuff? IS there a coating on the new stuff that changes its effectiveness like the way the new formulation of Oxycontin did when it came out in 2010? Let us know.

Mine only started a few days ago so it is too early to say. It is the Opana long acting. They had to change it to stop people from crushing and abusing them.

Let us see if it works.

here are the article links;

This one is from Endo Pharmaceutical directly, the company that makes the drug;

Crush-Resistant Formulation of Opana ER® Approved by the FDA

Here is the second one ;

Endo Announces FDA Approval of a New Formulation of Opana® ER Designed To Be Crush-Resistant

Hope it helps everyone!

Peace, Keith

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REPORT

Don't take it out on the many messengers ! We have all said the same thing but no one listens or cares ? Just let them suffer ? That's Not the way it is supposed to go ! Is there anyone who can listen to All the ppl. Who complain over & over about the d
Same MEDS .THERE MUST BE SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO CAN BE THE HEAD SPEAKER FOR ALL OF US WHO HAVE BEEN SUFFERING A LONG TIME NEEDLESSLY ! PLEASE THERE MUST BE SOMEONE OUT THERE ?? I BEG YOU WHO EVER YOU ARE ???

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If you let it sit in your mouth for a bit "between gum and cheek" it will begin to get soft and will completely dissolve. I would not recommend chewing it that totally defeats the purpose of er meds. But I hope this helps you to get more out of the changed med.

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They are not very effective to the point of having to rely on brekthrough med. To prevent withdraw symptoms, also having stomach cramps from new form ulation. Problem is saying anything makes you subject to scrutiny all because of people abusing things. It really dosnt seem fair.

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I just started taking the new one and dont think they are as good. They do not totally disolve, When i took a B M i felt something when i wiped and found it was a half disolved opana, what does that tell you ?

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Why do we, the responsible, have to pay for the irresponsible? Why Got my Opana refill and pharmacist told me of formula change. Here we go again. just like the Oxycontin that made me vomit after that change. Needless to say, the Opana was less effective and made me sick. I have GI problems anyway. Out of curiosity, I tried to split the pill. It is plastic, or the consistency thereof. Just two weeks ago me and my doc agreed that we finally hit a home run with my CP treatment. Now this... it just pi$$es me off. Are 'they' trying to kill us, or WHAT?

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THE RUMORS ABOUT REFORMULATED OPANA ARE TRUE FOR A SMALL PERCENT OF LEGIT CHRONIC PAIN PATIENTS-

DO NOT MAKE THE STUPID MISTAKE OF REALIZING IT TOO LATE AS I DID

-Some common symptoms
1-The drug has an substantially longer ramp time (3+ hours to reach remotely adequate blood serum levels)
2- The drug never yields the same level of bioavailability, therefore you feel the need to re dose early.
3- Doubling your prescribed dose ((NOT RECCOMMENDED) barely changes anything
4- Aproximately 24 hours after taking the first dose you begin to experience pain in stomach/abdomen
5- The pain continues to grow worse to the point you are bed ridden & fairly out of it by the 3rd-5th day
6- mistakenly taking more in an attempt to get out of bed actually worsens the conditions
7- if you ONLY TAKE OPANA WITHOUT YOUR BREAK THRU- your normally super constricted pupils are overtly dilated in basic indoor light and infact mine are so much so, I am having difficulty maintaining eye focus as I type this.
8- if you stop taking the Opana and using an equal analgesic calculator take an equal to your Opana dose of your break thru med (mine Oxycodone IR) the pain stops within 24 hours and every thing returns to normal by 36-48 hours, although using ur break thru med in an attempt to verify this will likely use it all up very quickly, which is how I found out about #7
7- From the 1-2nd day you take it, all bowel functions stop. In my case, usually if I encounter opiate related constipation one large dose of Philips BRAND Milk of Magnesia & 32 oz of water fixes things same day. In this case, Starting on the 3rd day without a BM I forced myself to make it to the pharmacy to buy the smaller size & repeatly dose it as above 4 days in a row (It took the entire bottle) before- I'm not quite sure what kind of sludge/tar came out over the next few days but I wish I had continued to take the laxative. Or hey- here's a bright idea CALL MY DR!
8- Buy week three if you stupidly did what I did (I blamed my symptoms on every concievable thing before realizing it was the OPANA) you will never ever want to take another Opana again in life, and you will be out of all of your meds anyway. My emergent appointment with my dr is tomorrow, of course I am to bring my meds. I've 2 Opana. As smart as I am, for as much as I Know about pharmacology, especially opiate agonist(s), even though I've been on every one of these meds at some point over the last 15 years continuously, even though I absolutly understood every word of my narcotics contract with my doctor, for whatever stupid reason I didn't think to pick up the phone to call him because I didn't figure it out until it was too late.

Therefore, I will feel fortunate tomorrow if my dr is kind enough to prescribe me Suboxone, even if temporarily as to afford me the time to get into a rehab clinic and prescribed it regularly as to prevent me suffering with my worst nightmare- withdrawal

I tried Suboxone as an alternative for a month a ways back, it absolutely does a 100% effective job by the 5th day to eliminate the horrid sickness associated with withdrawal, it easy to maintain, but in mu case does exactly zero to reduce the horrific pain I suffer from a 22" rod installed 23 years ago to correct scoliosis, and the degenerative compounding effects of time. Wires break, disks not fused absorb all of the weight and degenerate, I'm sure you have your own issues.

THIS COMPLETELY SUCKS- but the blame for not working with my dr sooner is only my own and I expect he will treat me as an abuser of my medication, regardless of the fact I've been on this kind of med 15 years and grew out of such behavior or mistakes after about the 3rd year, with rare exception. And with the passage of bill 58, and the heavy scrutiny by DEA, I do not expect my dr to risk his licence to save me.

PLEASE IMMEDIATELY SEE YOUR DR IF YOU EXPERIENCE ANY OF THE THINGS I'VE LISTED.

I'd appreciate comments from anyone who ends up having similar problems and a detailed description of everything you associate with it. I will attempt to determine whom is most likely to be affected and or why. My only guess is I take RX strength Prilosec & perhaps the low acidity effects the solubility of the design. Endo "Has not conducted a study with this variable and they apparenty believe there is nothing different about their new version as long as taken as directed" gee thanks, I've paid you $1,000 a month, out of pocket for 5+ years for what was once the drug that gave me a near normal life.

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Get the ms contin. For sure. Don't listen to anyone else. The OP oxys are totally useless. Opana I hear are too. MS contin is what u want. It WILL work.

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I have taken Opana ER 40 mg for about 3 years. Have tried to take the new formula. It is virtually useless and it hurts my stomach. WHY did they have to reformulate a good medication. I read the bioavailability is only 10% orally so now it must really be cut down.
All in the name of "the war on Drugs" and a NEW PATENT!! Ugh!!
Am not sure what medication I will change to now but will not stay with this stuff.

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I pray there was a place chronic pain patients could get their Dr. To let these co. Know all side effects & that opana doesn't work,not the OxyContin too! We need ad advocate to speak up for us chronic pain patients? If anyone knows a place we can give our names & Dr. Names with all the problems w the drugs that use to work but since there changes ,since fentynol patch OxyContin & now opana!! There's nothing left says my Dr. Right? Who can write to fix all these problems, we're the Real sufferers HELP US A PERSON WHO WILL HELP US ?

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I got injured in 2005, had discectomy c5-6, and ended up getting hurt at work 2 years later, am a candidate for surgery for both c-spine and L-spine, had been on opana for 4 years, has helped tremendously considering i am too scared for any more surgeries. This newer formulated med is NOT helping with my pain, in fact, my pain level has increased in the past 4 months i've had this newer formulated Opana!!! I do not know what to do!! I work and am currently enrolled to go back to school, but i'm scared my increased pain level will prevent me again!!

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I too am on the IR. If u are afraid of everyone finding out about them then shut up!!

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Very HARD to read because your spekling sucks......Take some time off the drugs and grab a 5th graders homework and get busy....No one is perfect but WOW, your post was seriously hard to read and it made very little sense.

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i hear ya dude i have a terrbile back problem its a degenerative birth defect and i als take opana 40s and just got the new pills last thursday and been taking it since last sunday and i tell you what i felt like absolute s*** like i was withdrawing likke it wasnt working effectively like it used to started geting a rash yesterday night and just havent felt right since ive had teh new meds ive been on this med. for a long time now and i agree that we have to suffer cuz people need to abuse medicine just not fair to people who suffer in pain and do everything we can to get better and need to take these meds to have some qaulity of life now oonce again i have to go thru a change because of meds beiing switched to gels. how all of a sudden its a problem is my genneration that f***ed up that these people have to formulate new meds to stop from crushing and shotting up how long has meds been out why didntthey think of this to begin with . now i suffer as well as others for peoples foolish ways well i am glad you posted that exalgo because if this keeps up ima see if this will be switched

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I also started on the new OPana 40Mg 1 every 8 hours and I have had a headache, my stomach is burning an I'm having such bad indigestion, throwing up 1/2 hr after taking a dose, this is horrible. get a very bad taste in my mouth after 24 hours as well. I'm gonna see if my insurance will allow my Dr. to switch me to Exalgo er's. I spoke to a pharmacist and they told me the only other thing that is close to Opana's ER is Exalgo ER a 24 hr. release pill and from a 40mg Opana would be a 16 MG Exalgo ER. I'm hoping I can switch, these side effects on the new Opana er are awful and no pain relief just sicker than crap. I once went through this when Oxycontin changed there fourmulary but it was worse I went into a cardiac arrest due to the plastic and rubber in their product. I was really affraid of this happening just when I got switched 14 months ago after trying everything else and it either didn't work or was allergic. What gives with these idiots changing only certain meds all of a sudden these days. I have never abused my meds,why do we have to suffer because of the abuser's. But for those of you looking for relief I was told 24 hour release Exalgo ER by pharmacy. I also did find out it is very exspensive. Good luck to all suffering in pain an now suffering the sickness of Opana er's

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I always find it amazing how often they try to 'fix' a drug, to prevent a problem, but just end up creating more.

In all my years dealing with information on them, I have to wonder if they even bother to really test these new formulations to make sure that they work as well as the old ones?

I know, in theory, they should, but people's bodies don't operate on theory alone.

https:/­/­rxchat.com/­wiki/­opana/­

Does anyone else have any experiences to share?

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Well guys, after five weeks on the new Opana I finally gave up on it. It gave me stomach cramps, headaches, and because of the coating it did not dissolve completely before passing through my body so it was not nearly as effective as the old Opana so my pain was waaay up from before.

And I am sure that the people they were trying to stop, by changing the formulation, have already figured out a way to bypass the new version.

My Dr put me on the Fentanyl patch and it is working pretty well. We have to play around with the dose a little I think but no side effects, no stomach problems, and already better pain relief than the new opana and approaching the old opana relief.

PLEASE, whoever makes the patch, do NOT change how you make it ok? PLEASE?!

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I have been taking the Opana 40 mg 3 X day for 2 years. It was a wonder drug. I have very little back pain as I have Failed Back Surgery Syndrome and in pain all day long. The new ones are crap! Gives me shakes, bad moods, stomachache's and in some terrible pain. Im going to have to make an appt with my PM dr ASAP to switch me to something different! I have been in bed for three days now and cant take it anymore! I hope ENDO gets a class action lawsuit cause I will be on the list to sue as well.. I hope the ones who take them normal and dont ABUSE them gets something else to deal with their pain and to those who POST THE ABUSE THEY DO on here go to HELL!! You are the main reason why we with chronic pain have to suffer. This new s*** is horrible! They lost my $1837.00 a month that my insurance has to pay for them.. Ugh!!

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Thanks to all the junkies that post all there info on these forms screwed it up for the rest of us that really need the opana!!
If it wasnt talked about so open maybe the wiould have never reformulated these pills!!
I for one am very pissed off about this!!
Hopefully there will be a generic but I doubt it!!

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Crap. I have a fairly low tolerance to opiates right now, as I have been seriously weening myself down over the last few weeks. Actually, I havent taken anything in 4 days and I was taking less than 1 mg of suboxone for an entire week. I was still too sick to work today, so in desperation, got 2 40's of these new POS's to get through my shift tonight. 40 mg of tramidol would have helped more. Rediculous. Even with a high tolarence, 10 mg of the old formula would bring me out of the funk. I believe they screwed up big time. I did feel better( I was in some pretty bad withdrawl) but no where close to what I should have felt on the old formula.

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i been takong opana 40s for the last 2 years they worked great. the new form sucks dosnt do s*** for pain and i have to take one every 8 hours to avoid withdrawl. im gonna run out ten days early what the hell am i supposed to do. i feel like filing a lawsuit against endo pharm for ruining my freakin life. opana was the only med that truly worked and improved quality of life.

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