Fentanyl Patch Withdrawal Symptoms And Duration (Page 15)
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i have post surgical lower back pain. was in 50 mcg patch and had side effects and so decided to wean off. i finished with the 12 mcg patch a week ago and am still suffering from periodic nausea, irritability, daily joint and muscle pain, but the worst is the consistent restless legs. it is driving me crazy. my doctor says that is not withdrawal. is he right? i don't think so. if it is withdrawal, what can i do about it and how long will it last? i am going crazy.

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Question: Who do you think knows more about a medicine, you are someone who spent years going to school to learn to be a doctor? DO NOT FART AROUND WITH FENTANYL!

It DOES expire in 72 hours, but there is a window of carry-over when the pain will stay where it is. But the DRUG expires in 72 hours because that is the way it works.

I've over five years experience with Fentanyl. Do NOT try to go lower than what your doc has recommended because you will NOT get a refill at any other dosage. Fentanyl is a controlled substance and requires a physicians ORIGINAL Rx slip to get a refill and it is good for about 2 or 3 days and then the prescription expires.

ANY strength of Fentanyl will cause withdrawals at any strength. If you NEED 50 stick with it. Your doc will lower it if he/she thinks it is appropriate.

I'm one of those people who cannot use any other narcotic except IV Morphine for pain relief and that only when I'm in a hospital setting. Essentially, Fentanyl only works for nerve pain, at least that has been my experience. I have peripheral neuropathy in both feet, Fentanyl is the ONLY drug that has made it possible for me to live.

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Dee, do you have any benzos, such as klonipin, or valiume? This or soma will help with the restless legs. I was on zanaflex (simular to some) and it help but dropped my blood pressure. Clonidine, for blood pressure help also. but be careful taking that. Good luck and hope you do good...I have been clean off thesse patches for over 1 1/2 years..and got my life back....woohoo...

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I just got off 50mg. Doc gave me perks and said take one every 4 hrs. The sweating and anxiety, restless leg AND BODY! My whole body jerks around bad! DRIVING ME CRAZY. Been up for two days. Getting nothing done because I'm so tired. No energy at all. Praying this restless BODY stuff will stop soon. I think that is my worse as far as the withdrawals. If I try to get sleep, there goes my body jerking all over and sweating. I don't know why doc didn't give me something to KNOCK ME OUT COLD at night. DONT USE THE PATCH! They are bad. Falls off, itches so bad...leaves little welts looking like square marks all over my body. Hope not going to stay like that all over me; patch marks on my body I mean. JUST WANTED IT OFF. Didn't help much with my pain. I was still a level 6/7 pain always AND WAS NOT GOING UP OVER 50 This patch messes with your emotions bad. My husband also on 75mg and other things. Have a feeling these patches cost us our marriage. We are no longer together. Only been a wk we left one another. Got abusive and not going to try to repair this marriage. Too much bad that can't be washed away now. Just I really think these patches changed us some how and they are just bad. NO PATCHES FOR ME EVER AGAIN. I CANT WAIT TILL THIS POISIN IS OUT OF ME. so sick of always wanting to sleep very
Deep DEPRESSION.... not eating... Heart pounding out of my chest at times.. There are other things we can take or do to help this pain. Good luck to you all with and don't give up. I want the real me back. My children need me. I'm a zombie with raccoon eyes..I CANT STAY STILL AND IM GOING NUTS. THEY ARE BAD. Going nuts for sleep. Wish could handle cleaning or something SEEN IM UP but can't....zombie right now.

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Denise, I have been on Suboxone for over a year and it works very well for the withdrawals. You also will see an amazing turn around in your life. I don't even take as much as the doctor scribes to me. I don't have to because I see now that I don't have to "have" anything for the pain. My Sub doctor told me my pain level intensified when I was on pain meds just so I would need more pain meds. The company makes them like that so you won't stop using their products. Now that I have been off the pain med for over a year I see a difference in my life. Good luck.

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I don't think it's true about a prescription for Fentanyl only being good for 72 hours. The doctor wrote me a prescription the first time for 2 weeks worth (5 patches). He wanted me to come in for a consultation with the nurse practitioner to see how it was working out. After that appointment she wrote me two prescriptions, one for the next 2 weeks and one for a month and I will have an appointment with my doctor towards the end of this month for another prescription and to have him check in with me. So anyway I was allowed to hang on to that prescription for 2 weeks and turn it in and get 10 patches for the next month.

I wrote in before saying in the past 6 to 7 months I have gone from 8 to 9 30 mg oxycodone pills a day to a 50 mg Fentanyl patch only. I am worried from things I am reading that these patches will be harder to withdraw from than if I had continued with the withdrawal going down slowly strictly with pills. What is the easiest route. What do others think is the best form of opiates to use for withdrawing with the least suffering. I can't hardly believe it when I read that someone on here says he just stops taking his pain meds for 2 weeks to lower his tolerance. I have not tried recently, but in going down from the huge amounts I was taking, that would not be worth it at all for me. When I ran out early the restless legs and other withdrawal symptoms were horrible. I hope it will be easier withdrawing from a lower dosage.

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One of the things that I've learned about arthritis and its associated pain: Do not use pain killers. I'm using Naproxen, 500 mg twice a day.. I'm on Fentanyl 50 mcg/hr and it does NOTHING for my back or shoulder pain, however, it is the ONLY thing that works on my neuropathy. It seems to work only on nerve pain, but others have used it for other pain, so ???

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This morning at about 4 am, I had to head for the emergency room. My doctor went on vacation just as I ran out of Fentanyl patches (50 mcg/h). After three days sans patches, I went into withdrawal so badly that I thought my back was going to break. Fortunately for me, the hospital and my clinic are associated so the hospital knew I had been on Fentanyl for an extended period of time and they gave me a patch to tide me over until I can strangle my doctor (just kidding, she's one of the best I've ever had) but SOMETHING is going to have to happen. This is the third time she's been out when I needed a refill. Even my pain doc will not Rx me for more than five patches but when I needed him...yeah...he was on vacation, too. SOMETHING needs to be done to be able to register people who legitimately require opiate drugs so that physicians can write the appropriate 'scripts when required. The PROBLEM is that the prescriptions have to be ORIGINALS but only are good for about 72 hours. If the prescription is not filled, the paper is just so much paper. This was the first time I went into withdrawal pain because of withdrawing from Fentanyl, however, when I had to get off oral Morphine, that was...well, a b****!
I'm seriously considering starting a program of some kind that will never put anyone else at risk for being forced into unnecessary withdrawal pains.

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Methadone is not the way to go i had to quite cold turkey i was sick for two months first 16 days i didebt sleep five min getting off meth way harder then the pach im going thhro the w/d right now and compar to the meth not comparable just my point

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I'm not a doctor but have been taking pain medication for 6 yrs and at times have stopped taking them for up to two weeks so that I can lower my tolerance. What you are describing is exactly what withdrawal is. Typically my withdrawal would last approx 10 days, the worst being the first 4 days but after that the symptoms were much less severe. While I was going through them though I still needed something for my pain so I continued to take my tramadol, which helped with the pain as well with the withdrawls. I've been taking tramadol for 11 yrs and the oxycodone for 6 yrs. I've had 4 back surgeries since 2006 and am worse off now than I was prior to surgery. I'm actually shocked that your doctor doesn't recognize your symptoms as withdrawl, it's odd because everything you mentioned is classic symptoms. Good luck to you.

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stick with it.......and vinegar bath will help

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Sorry to hear you're still having problems withdrawing, but your doctor, while probably a pretty good doc, is close to being an idiot about Fent withdrawal. RLS is a potential side effect of withdrawal from any drug. Keep in mind that ANY narcotic can have all sorts of side effects. I was on Dilantin to prevent grand mal seizures following a stroke. I tried to get my doctor to change my Rx to something else, but he insisted that I remain on it. As a result, I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. I have spasmodic dysphonia which messes up my ability to speak and I have difficulties controlling various muscle groups in my body. The idiot neurologist had never bothered to turn the page on Dilantin. I was so angered that he did not understand that I was getting neuropathy from the darned drug that I TORE the page out of his PDR and showed him all of the negative things that were happening to me. Take a look and see what the warnings about the drug are. Because walking is IMPOSSIBLE without my patches, I will be continuing on them.

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I just turned 60 and have a lot of back pain and hip pain which is referred pain from back they say. Also arthritis in knees,etc. Over the past 10 years I've worked up to a 240+ mg dependency on Oxycodone. Was taking at least 8 30 mgs oxy per day. So, my doctor got called on the carpet for over prescribing to his patients and decided it was time to retire. He started taking me down fast. Every week I went down 30 mg until I reached 3 per day. I had an appointment for a pain clinic or he would have kept going and it was too fast for me and I was struggling and did have some bad days for sure. Been at the pain clinic for a couple of months now and they put me on 3 per day of the time release Morphine pills. They wanted me off any instant release meds I guess. I was struggling to keep within the prescribed amount and running low when time for my next prescription so he switched me about 3 weeks ago to Fentanyl 50 mcg patches. It's a big switch not feeling like you have any control of when you take something for pain and you certainly don't get any of the feelings you get from the pills, but I thought fine they seem to help the pain and it will stop me from taking an extra pill when I am in pain or my brain just tells me to from past habits maybe. Problem is sometimes they seem fine and then the next time I feel like I have withdrawal feelings by the 3rd day. I think that problem is getting worse each patch I use. I get hot flashes where I just break out in a sweat and I wondered if that might make it worse. Also, when I take the patch off it is usually wet underneath. Is it me and my system most likely or are these patches at once every 3 days just not going to work for me. I have read where others have said there doctor lets them change every 48 hrs because of this problem. Also everything I am reading on here makes me wonder if these patches will be harder to get off of than pills if that is the end goal the doctor has in mind for me, which I think it is.

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hi Guy's, Im 54 had a broken rotator cuff for the past four years and have been a habitual user of Fentynal 50s 25s and 12s, along with Oxcycontin 20s 30s. The pain went away however I was a bad boy and lied to my Doctor telling him the pain was still there to get these drugs. I was hooked and he became my drug dealer. Of course after being on opiates for so long it started to take its toll , short term memory loss , forgetfulness , generally living in a fairy dairy land and not having much recollection of the past four years which is sad. I new it had to stop so I fessed up to my doctor and he put me on CLONDINE which is a high blood pressure reduction drug however it helped mask some of the terrible withdrawals I was experiencing (Hell) . For the kicking of the feet and that awful head feeling in bed I found using a hypnotic sleeping pill got rid of it 100% ( Not Stynox ). Its been my 5th day of cold turkey, Diarrhoea is reducing, so is the sneezing . The withdraws are hell however by using what I have from my Doctor has made things a lot easier, especially the sleeping tablets for the kick feet.

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Dang, I've been on Fentanyl for a few years now because of intractable neuropathy. I may be on it for the rest of my life. I vary from 100 mcg/hr down to 50 and even 25 depending on how badly the burning is. Neuropathy in the feet is exactly like walking on white hot shards of broken glass even though the feet are numb. Yeah. Numb and PAIN. It does zilch for skeletal/muscle pain; I take White Willow Bark for that. If things get too painful, I take prescription strength naproxen. I try not to take it, however, because I'm also on gabapentin.

I'm trying to replace Fentanyl with the gabapentin, but I'm a very colorful woman...I'm yellow, the color of my religion...I'm a devout COWARD! Orthodox, of course. The reason for my angst is that I have withdrawn from Morphine cold turkey. NEVER AGAIN!

One of the things that I have used with some success; however the pain always takes over and I've got to get back into a trance state. Tonight, however, I broke a 56 year record and had my first car accident. I backed up into another vehicle because I didn't see his headlights. My '98 Ford van had NO damage. The brand new 2014 Ford F-150's front bumper was dented in. I tell you this only because even though I was going very slow, I still had a whiplash...just what I did NOT need.

Take care y'all, hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

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You need to come down slower. It takes like six months to wean. Get Mylan brand. This brand does not have the gel inside. By the way the restless legs are withdrawals. Get another doctor.

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I've been reading all of your withdrawls and thank god didn't have to go through wd for some unknown reason I was on 100mcg fentynal and when I had to move out of state my doc gave me 2 month supply but found it difficult at first to find a new pain doctor so I feared the worst wd but believe it or not my wd were hardly as bad as a minor cold didn't understand but it took me 5 months to find a new doc and got repriscribed so i ask the doc about why I had no we he said it was because fentyal has a long half life so it gradually weened me off itself I kid you not sorry for all of you going through wd I know what its like I had to go through wd when I came off of oxy's 80 mg 4 a day good luck

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I am so sorry for u. I am longterm on fentanyl patches 50. , but unwell last day and a half. I remember seeing a used patch on the bathroom floor and said to myself to b more careful changing.i realised it was like wd, as a few years ago was vomiting and got wd then too. It is frightening.

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I pray that all of you who are trying to wean yourselves off of the Fentanyl patch will have the courage, and that is what it takes, to follow through. I just went from 50 to 25 to 12 over the course of two months. I experienced
ALL of the withdrawal symptoms that you have described. Be of good heart and courage and prayer, especially during those times of depression when it is the most difficult. YOU WILL MAKE IT AND YOU WILL BE BETTER. THE MORE MEDS WE CAN DO WITHOUT THE BETTER. I know, I know, easy to say, hard to do. I've taken them all for acute fibromyalgia pain. Bless you. A retired university professor of 73yrs.......

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Amitriptyline is the only antidepressant with a sleep aid in it. That's why it's used for sleep. I take 150mg a night. I was started on 25mg. Can't imagine only 10mg.

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I feel for you. I am also a mother, and went through severe withdrawl.
I couldnt have done it at home though. I was blessed enough to have my daughter be able to stay with her father while I checked in to the local detox centre for 2 weeks.
My severe wd only lasted a couple days, but.I was just exhausted. I stayed until I could eat, and gained my strength and energy back, so my daughter didn't have to see me looking like crap lol

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