RE[CF Alliance]Chronic Pain Fuels Boom in Opioids--

March 15, 2012

I'm very glad that works for you . What was your experience with the

Lyrica? I'm afraid to try it. Neurontin might have helped a little bit but I was

horrified by the side effects I had and refused it afterward.

I was on the duragesic patch myself but found that when it was strong enough to

stop the pain, it was dangerously high & almost knocked me out.

My doctor here gave me the patch at 25 mg but it did not help. They could have

raised it,the next month but I suspect not enough.

But what really stopped me is that even the doctor told me it's *very* hard to

withdraw from if you ever want/need to get off it. So I decided not to try

again.

I'm astonished that you manage w/o opiates!( I'm happy for you though that you

*can*!) :-)

*And* that tylenol with codeine now can help you with the terrible type pain.

Re: Chronic Pain Fuels Boom in Opioids/pandy

Netty/Margie

When I was using opiods for pain management (peripheral nerve

degradation, small nerve fiber count at 10% of normal, etc., etc.), we

switched to the patches when the number of oxycodone pills got too high.

The best thing about them is the blood level of Fentanyl (generic name -

duragesic) remains constant. I would then use the oxycodones for

breakthrough pain.

The bad part of my situation was that the narcotics were doing nothing

for the pain directly, but were just dulling my senses. I went through

a six-week in-patient pain program at s Hopkins during which I was

taken off all narcotics. With no narcotics in my systems, the pain

levels were the same as when I was on 150 mcg duragesic patch, 40 mg

oxycodone, and 400 mg Ultram per day.

We are now trying every other trick in the book for the pain, such as

anticonvulsants, neurotropics (like Lyrica), anti-depressants, etc. I

can use Tylenol with codeine for bad breakthrough pain, knowing that the

real benefit is that I will be in la-la land within 15 minutes. And so

it has gone for many years now. But if the opiods do the trick for you,

I believe the patches are the best way to go.

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