New To Patch And Scared To Use It

I saw a new PM doctor yesterday. He was extremely nice as far as his personality. But when it came to the medications, he just wouldn't listen. I have a very low tolerance for strong pain meds. The strongest I can go is a Lortab 10/500 (which I've been on since 2005 successfully). Anything above that makes me sick or euphoric along with other challenging side effects. The only side effect from the Lortab I dealt with was dry mouth. No biggy. This new doctor doesn't believe in the short acting medications as a primary source of pain relief. Even after I explained to him that ever since I was a pre-teen, the long acting medications make me sick. I can take the exact same medication in short acting form and be just fine, but continuous is a disaster. Yesterday at my appt he put me on Norco 10/325 x4 for break through and a 25mcg fentanyl patch. I haven't filled the patch rx yet, I am still doing my research on it. So far it has me scared s***less. But since he cut my dose of the hydrocodone and tylenol down from 7 to 4, not only am I dealing with major pain, but also dealing with withdrawals. From what I've been reading, if I have the patch on, I can't sit outside or be outside in the nice warm air? I'm from Michigan so I really look forward to summer since I spend the majority of the winter in the house. Is this true? I can't be outside in the heat? What about if my house doesn't have air conditioning, will that cause the patch to release more than it should? I don't want to die. I also take .5mg Xanax for PTSD anxiety attacks, I read that I can't take those with the patch. Will this Fentanyl Patch leave me like a zombie? Does it have the euphoric side effect? (I'm trying to avoid both of those since I'm a single mom and a full time college student.) What other side effects can I expect? If I decide to pick up my prescription and use the patch and it makes me sick or I can't handle the side effects how long after I remove the patch until the stuff will be out of my system? Lastly, how hard is it to get off of the patch? With it costing 135.00 per month, I may not be able to afford it for long. Thank you for any info you can give me.

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Hi! I am sorry about the problem you've encountered and I understand your concerns.

But the doctors really don't have much choice anymore, since it has been found that short acting medications are more commonly abused and have higher addiction rates than the time released ones, the government put new regulations in place at the beginning of the year to restrict how much of any regular or instant release medication they can prescribe and for how long they can prescribe it. It's been deemed that proper and safe pain management can only be done with time released medications.

(And due to other change requests made by the FDA because of the toxicity issues associated with Acetaminophen, all Hydrocodone/Acetaminophen tablets will soon be lowered to a maximum of only 325mgs per dose.)

Fentanyl is a very potent narcotic, the strongest available actually, To give you a comparison it's over 80 times stronger than Morphine.

Sitting in warm air would be fine, it's when you overheat that you could encounter a problem. Basically any temperature that makes you sweat, I encountered it once years ago when I tried it and took a hot soak in the tub. So yes, that may be a problem for you.

And yes, if you react strongly to other time released medications, you may experience the same issues with this. There is a chance you won't, since it's absorbed through the skin, but the risk is there. Personally, I never got euphoria from it or any other narcotic, so I'd say you should gauge that on how they effect if, if you don't get it from others, it's doubtful that it will happen with this one.

But it may cause the zombie type thing, I couldn't stay awake on it no matter how hard I tried.

On top of information on medications and such, I'm trying to also give you a personal perspective. The vomiting and constipation were the worst side effects, they would not ease up for me. I couldn't hold down plain water and was completely miserable on these patches.

Some people are very happy with them and get great pain relief, but you sound more like me, so I'm being honest. Even with the 5/500 Lortab, I can only take half of one, or I get sick and the 10/500's are way too strong for me, since you're so similar, it makes sense to be very cautious with this.

And if you were to take off the patch, it would still be in your system for anywhere from 47.5 hours to 74.4 hours.

Did he give you any other options?

A low dose Oxycontin tablet would make more sense as a starting point for a time released medication.

Learn more Fentanyl details here.

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