Phetynol patch

[joey1957]

My wife found a great doctor in Tampa Florida and for the first time in 15 years is out of pain. She uses the flat patch, 25's. She is getting off all meds. On her next visit to the doctor she is going from the patch to a pill and she is getting off the pain medication. Yesterday she lost one of the patches. it fell off. can she cut the thing patch to make things last......it is not the gell patch.

[joey1957]

thank you all very much.

we will not cut the patch. in fact we threw them away and my wife is beginning the process of getting off getting off of the patch. we are using valium and advil every 4 hours. she is sleeping comfortably most of time. I have been told that keeping the body as relaxed as possible is the best way to handle the beginning couple of days when things are worst.

does anybody have advise?

[Jacqui805]

I'm not supposed to be here right now....but I  couldn't help from answering here....do NOT cut the patch.  Even though it is not a gel patch, problems can result.  The medication is not evenly distributed over the suface of this flat patch, and more can be in one part than in another....not too mention, like someone said, it'll likely not be too helpful to go down by 50% in dose anyway.

[corey411]

Duregesic patches are worse than any pill you can get. The wd is hell

[Dieing2Live]

fentanyl patches are also addicting and hard to get off

[suppdawg]

My pain doc put me on duragesic and it was the worst possible of all solutions. Does duragesic work? Yes. It is very effective but getting off of it was the worst experience of my life.  I was miserable for three weeks. I lost 22 lbs and didn't really have that much to lose. Duragesic is perfect for a cancer patient but really is not ideal for a person who is planing on getting off of it.

[worried878]

DURAGESIC® patches are intended for transdermal use (on intact skin) only. Using damaged or cut DURAGESIC® patches can lead to the rapid release of the contents of the DURAGESIC® patch and absorption of a potentially fatal dose of fentanyl.

I once walked in a room as a nurse, found a patient who had taken off his patch and chewed it...he coded and died...there is alot of medication concentrated in the patch to be released over a 24 hour period...not all at once...if you cut them you would have no way of knowing the amount your wife would be absorbing..bad idea and would call the doctor for a replacement

[kittykat58]

you must not cut the patches or alter them in anyway -- doing so can cause a fatal overdose. also, she should not go out in excessive heat/sun or soak in hot tubs, excessively long, hot baths, etc, for the same reason. I was on the patch last year and got off it b/c it scared me so much; I kept thinking  would go to sleep and never wake up. I don't want to visit tthat kind of horror on my kid.

also, when my doc wanted me off any bt meds he upped the dose to 37.5 mcgs (1 25 & 1 12.5) -- made me sick as a dog. we'd have to pull over every 13 minutes so I could hurl out the window, horrible.