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Help ...Fentanyl Patch Withdrawals

My spine doctor placed me on 50mg Fentanyl Patches 6 months ago.  It definately helped me with the pain, but when I started reading the terrible side effects I decided I wanted to go off this medication.  With the help of my pain doctor, I decided to go cold turkey.  Today is day 3.

Night time is worse.  Bet I haven't had more than 3 hours sleep in the past 3 nights.  Skin is crawling, stomach feels like hundreds of worms are just squirming all over.  Legs feel like I have restless leg syndrom.

Last night I prayed for 2 hours and cried myself to sleep at around 2am ... was up at 3:30.

This is awful.  Does anyone have any suggestions to help me get through this?
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Avatar universal
Woah, that is sooo so strong.  I have always wondered how hard that would be to come off of.  I hope and pray to god I never have to experience it myself though.  I wish you well and hope you get to where you want to be.  I have no experience with Fentanyl Patch, so I have no advise for you sorry.  But, Good Luck!
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Avatar universal
You say "with the help of a pain doctor".  What exactly do you mean by that?  Did the croaker give you a pat on the back and some words of encouragement?  Because that is not help.  The good thing about fentanyl is that it has a very short half life, so wd should not be as long as say morphine or heroin.  Bad thing is that wd tends to be sharper and harder with a shorter half life.  Go back to this "helpful" doctor and ask him for some real help.  Get a script of xanax, soma, clonidine and maybe a antihistamine like cyproheptadine (which is excellent for getting good sleep, especially in conjunction with a benzo).  A gabapentinoid might help as well for a few days, say neurontin 300mg tid po x 5 days.  Go and ask this doctor for some real "help".  

Good luck and chin up, you will make it through this.

Ray
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Avatar universal
Hi BB -- Welcome to the forum.  You are at the right place.  Fentanyl is a very powerful Opiate -- one of the strongest --- it is about 80 times more potent than morphine.  The good part to that is it works wonderful on pain receptors in the brain - the down side is that it is very addictive (as you have found out).  Thank goodness that you learned in time --- many get hooked and don't realize it until they have been on the 'patch' for a very long time ---- that makes it even harder to get free of.  The good news is that you are almost through the worst and will be free in a short while --- Please just hang in there and don't cave in --- If you do you will have to start the process all over again.  It will be like getting almost home and starting the trip at the beginning.  Please keep posting and asking questions and telling your story.  It helps.  All the best.
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