Fentanyl Patch Withdrawal Symptoms And Duration (Page 6)
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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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I would avoid methadone all the way. That was the hardest med to get off of. I was severely sick, was in hospital because I kept having grand mall seizures and even after that I ended up in a detox center for 12/days. It took months to get over that hell. All because it was the cheapest ones to afford for my pain control. I'd suffer before ever taking that medicine again!!!! I thought I was in hell... And I was. I'm withdrawing from fentanyl now an it's rough but nothing close to what methadone put me through!!! Don do it guys! Guarantee you will regret.

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read the brain that heals itself 'doig' for pan relief without drugs- it works for me. Off Fentanyl for over a year now, never again unless terminal.

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I have been on Fentayl 75 mcg for 15 years. Then a year ago I went down to 50mcg. Now today I am on 25mcg. Feeling like a have been hit by a truck. All my muscles are twisting 24 hours a day. Headaches terrible. I will see what happens.

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I was on fentanyl for 10 years and suffered a lot coming off them. I still have restless leg syndrome which I treat with a dopamine agonist. This is only a temporary reprieve as augmentation will kick in soon and the agonist will make the RLS worse. There seems to be no alternative apart from dopamine agonists, strong sedatives, Lyrica or opiates, none of which help the brain.

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If been slowly taken it off ,I'm free of them now,but my back and legs are driving me silly total agony xx

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I have been on Fentanyl patch 2 75mcg patches every 48 hrs for the past 8 years for chronic back pain, now I am in a situation with my pain clinic over a bill that I can't pay in full because I am disabled and just got my disability checks, and I live on a budget and this is the first income I have had in over a year while waiting for everything to go threw, I offered to pay half the bill and then make regular payments but they won't accept it so now I am out of the fentanyl and the Norco I have been on also so I am afraid of what the withdrawl symtoms are gonna be like on me, I don't have anything to help me at all other than nausea medications, I started experiencing the severe leg pain yesterday, can anyone tell me what to look for or what I should do, I have heard that coming off cold turkey after being on it this long could kill me or make me deathly ill please if anyone could give me advice I would greatly appreciate it, I am scared.

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you are having withdraw , your legs wont stop moving at night when trying to sleep,i had been on methadone 80 mg. for cronic pain and detoxed a few years ago. give it a few weeks it will get better, good luck

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Seek the Lord Jesus knock and the door will open He will give you strength and help you get through this difficult time. You are so precious in His eyes.

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1st day on the site. Methadone is just like being on opiates makes u loopy & go through withdrawal when u stop. Research 1st

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My daughter was abusing fentanyl and now she's in detox. Doc said she peaked on the 3rd day, but it's going on 6 days now and sick as a dog. It started out with oxymorphone then escalated and now she can't eat or sleep, has restless legs and is bouncing off the walls. I can't even visit cause she can't get out of bed. Doctors prescribe too much meds. I went in for a bad back without even getting an MRI. I was given 120 perks a month, from which I recently weaned myself off. Doctors are the biggest drug dealers. Beware when a doctor gives you that amount. He didn't care about his patient. It's all about the mighty dollar. Everyone I know gets that amount and the worst part is they're all junkies now. So sad.

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I would walk thru HELL before I get on Methodone it is the hardest med to kick and the sickness is worse .my advice don't do it .

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I have dealt with chronic back pain for 35 yrs and then hAd to have a total knee replacement surgery last August. I've been on morphine dilaudid lortabs OxyContin and oxycodone but I have Never had as much of a problem getting off of any med as I'm having with the fentynal patches. I'm now down to 12 mcg and trying very hard to stop these. My advice to anyone out there is to try anything else - legal that is - before resorting to fentanyl patches. They are sooo hard to stop. I've come off of 8 mg of dilaudid 3 x a day cold turkey and it was nothing in comparison. I wish I had never used this drug and never will again. Good luck to all in your attempts to stop using it.

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Hi I was on the patch for 15 years at 75mcg every 2 days. I suffered a bad work accident that left me in a lot of raw nerve pain in my legs. I was sent to a pain assessment clinic and was introduced to fentanyl. I must say that it helped and normalized my life as much as a drug like this can. In those years I didn't feel I had to increase dosage until recently I started feeling what I now know as withdrawal symptoms the yawning, tearing of eyes and of course rls. I knew it was time to quit or become a slave to fentanyl. I see that a lot of people take the weening off approach but couldn't se what amounts prolonging the suffering so I prepared and went off fentanyl cold turkey. With help I found online I got through those early days with about medium flew symptoms for about a week and a bit light headedness for another week. Now 2.5 months in I feel great but the rls plagues me every night only getting naps when exhaustion wins over. Has anyone fought through this withdrawal or is it with me permanently? Sorry for the long post.

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00mg/hour for 3 months and I titrate down from 100 to 75 for 4 weeks, then 79 for 4 weeks, then 50 for 4 weeks, then 25 for 4 weeks and finally 12.5 for 4 weeks, then every& other day, every third day, every fourth day, then every fifth day. Then I suffer the leg movements, cold sweats, bot fashes, anxiety etc for months and I cant be cause it is so hard to get off of. Dont takè ït unless you hmyave no other choice. Dilauded (synthetic morphine, often said that its 60 times stronger than morphìne) has really helped me! Good Luck! See pain medicine doctor, they have helped me so much!

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Thought id post an update. Im a month in today (seems longer). Im doing really well considering how bad I know it can be. I have the waterproof patches but have never needed them. My problem with the hot flushes was that it caused the patches to release fentanyl too quickly do the patches weren't lasting 48hrs. I am now down by almost half of the 50mcg patch. Still have the 12mcg on. Have been feeling ok except I seem to have gotten so far and now withdrawals have ramped up a lot. I feel weak, so fatigued yet cant sleep. No restless legs but anxious feeling comes and goes from my whole body usually with a hot flush, the odd stomach cramps and a bit of nausea. Flushes have decreased since I started though some days worse than others. Im hoping to be durogesic free by the beginning of March. That will be 3 months of tapering. Long enough I hope. I need to take it slowly. My body has a mind of its own and im not going to fail. I figure better to go slow than end up not getting off them. I have decreased the oxycontin too. Only use it when I absolutely have to so I dont end up withdrawing from it too. I don't know how someone can get off 150mcg without any withdrawals unless it was only a short term use. Im not using anything other than the odd 10mg oxycontin. Maybe one or two every couple of days. The only other thing I've had is pain and plenty of it. Back, neck, broken discs and nerve damage, muscle and tendon damage and arthritis, tendinitis pain in hips, jaw, hands, knees, shoulders. ..on n on. Also pain from fibromyalgia and myofacial and neuralgia. I find im not eating much either. But doing ok..better than I thought so far. Dont have a plan on what im going to do about my pain once im off the patches but ill deal with it somehow. Here's to better tomorrow's!

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I have learned over the last few years on how you wean yourself off of opiotes I am currently on a 75 mcg fetanyl patch I have 2 herniated disc, degenerated disc disease, and scoliosis, and I've been burned 30% of body, if you have just finished with the 12.5 mcg patch this is what you need to do get you 25 hydrocodones #10s.take 3 the first 3 days 2 for 4 days , 1 aday until gone :)

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Don't let Anyone tell u that the leg issues are not from wd that is the biggest part of wd that everyone I know has for at least minimum of 5 nights

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I came off fentanyl patches Duro Gesic 100mcg over 2.5 year cutting about 1mm strip from the patches each week It was a very unpleasant fear filled time 9with RLS restless leg syndrome being the worst - I could not rest when in pain, had to keep walking all night with the pain increasing). When I got down to about 25mcg I swapped to Kapanol 100mg and tapered from there. When I got down to 7mg / day I was in severe pain again and could not get off the bed except for very short periods. Now back on 10mg Kapanol twice daily. I never want to go back onto Fentanyl unless I am terminal. Make sure you have the patches with the fentanyl mixed in with the adhesive when you cut - if the fentanyl is stored in a reservoir and the patch is cut you may get an overdose. It takes a long period of suffering but it is worth being free of the fear of being enslaved.

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Hi, I know this is an old thread but im going through the withdrawal of Fentanyl myself. I have chronic health issues with severe pain. I've been on 62mcg of the Durogesic patch for about 8 yrs. At first the pain relief was a Godsend. I went from being unable to walk to being up and around a little, doing some almost normal things. I also have oxycontin 10mg when needed. I had been on the medication rollercoaster for a few yrs with specialists trying to control my pain before one specialist put me on the fentanyl. 8 yrs later and I've well and truly had enough. Obviously my pain is not controlled due to being tolerant of the dose I'm on and I'm sick of my life being ruled by medication. I have had a few instances where my prescribing Dr has gone away without leaving my scripts and I've had to jump through hoops to get another Dr to write an emergency script. [ I'm in Australia and they will mostly do that] 3 weeks ago I started tapering my patches. I'm on a 50mcg and a 12mcg every 48hrs. Instead of taking the 12mcg off I have cut my 50mcg patch a little each time. This way I can taper slowly. I have been having hot flushes from menopause so the patches weren't lasting 48hrs, and then I started having flushes from the patches. I know because the flushes are different. I also have chronic insomnia. Getting only 3 ish hrs per night sleep. My family says I look like I've aged 20 yrs in the last 8 and I know that's how I look. Hair, skin, everything is affected. I have wanted to get off them for yrs but my Dr wont allow it due to my conditions so I decided to regain some sense of normalcy albeit in pain and wean myself off. I have in 3 weeks gone down about 25mcg and so far doing ok. I still cant sleep and am having flushes and of course some withdrawals too but I'm trying to be strong and I am not turning back now. My pain level is high and Im having a hard time getting around but I still feel better knowing Ill be patch free in a couple of months. I have to do it slowly. Ive had the withdrawals before from trying to come off too fast and it was hell. I don't ever want to feel like that again. I was going to cut the patch at the same place for a week before stepping down a bit more but each time I cut one I cant help myself and I take a little more off each change. I am so angry that when I was put on this medication I was Never told how strong it was or how bad it is to come off. My Dr says I will need to have it for the rest of my life due to my health probs but Im not staying on a day longer than I have to. It really needs to be thoroughly investigated by the patients before you start it. The leaflet info does not tell you how potent or how awful it is to get off. I would never recommend it to anyone. It has been a journey of hell being on this stuff. Pain relief was never great anyway, and despite Dr advice I wouldn't go up in dosage. If I did how far would I have to keep going! Im only 47 and I want my life back.
I really hope those here have had success weaning off. No one should ever go cold turkey. You're body can go into shock and you could die. I know people say that you cant but I have seen it myself. Anyway Im hoping to be off all pain meds in 2 months ish. What then I don't know but at least Ill be me.

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Try the Tegaderm water proof dressings they use to keep air and moisture out. They reall work for me and I'm a SWEATER. You can go swimming with this things when applied appropriately. Most Dr.s or tech will give you a few. Hope this works!

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