hello everyone new to site and about to go thru withdrawal advice PLEASE

Hello Heather and welcome to the forum. You need to get a hold of your dr ASAP about patch, call and talk to his nurse and let her know what happened and ask what can you do. Secondly, that blood pressure is way too high. I don't know if you have a history of high blood pressure or not, regardless get in to see the dr, its nothing to mess around with. I see in your signature line you have some nerve damage, are you by chance on one of the nerve meds like Neurotin, Lyrica or Cymbalta? If not this may be something you want to discuss with your dr. A lot of our members that have nerve damage are on these meds with good results. As you probably know regular pain meds do not have much effect on nerve pain.

Anyway, I wanted to pop on and tell you hello and welcome aboard.....Susie

Regular Doc checked my blood pressure today and it was perfect 117/70...I didn't have the patch on...everytime my bp was high I had on the patch. He put a call into the clinic.

Thanks Suzane! Off to pain clinic tomorrow to find out what's going on. Did some research and found out that a severe side effect is hypertension....1 and 1000 experience this...ugh!

welcome aboard, heather. can't add much to the good advice to what has already been given to you, but wish you all the best as you try to get things stablized with your doctor. hope it works out for you.

please keep us well posted and stay in touch with us.

you are now part of our CP family, and we care.

david

Hi Heather, and welcome. Sorry to meet like this.

The aggravation you have right now may be early withdrawal symptoms. Make sure you eat something, and stay hydrated. It helps some. OTC NSAIDS like Motrin may help take the edge off pain wise, or call the nurse at the Dr's office and see if you can take something over the counter for motion sickness. Sometimes that's a help too.

Just a question, and not to sound like a perv or anything, but were you in an actual bath where the patch was underwater for a length of time? Or were you just in the shower? If you were just in the shower, you may want to think about putting an occlusive (or water proof) dressing over it, and taping it in place before you get in the shower, and limiting your time in the water. Plastic wrap, or a cut out part of a plastic bag will work as well, then use bandaging tape that you get at the pharmacy all around to seal and keep water from getting in. I know they are supposed to be waterproof, but depending on your skin, they may not be under certain circumstances.

And if he decides to put you back on a patch, ask him for something (1 dose worth, orally or a shot he can give in his office) of something fast acting, not enough to get you goofy, but to get your system back into some sort of order quickly.

Sometimes with pain meds, There's a bit of trial and error. If you are taking something that is affecting your BP to that level, there needs to be another option looked at, hopefully one that wont fall off during daily activities.

Best of luck to you. I went cold turkey off of a heavy regular dose of Lortab (40-50mg per day) and Flexeril (30mg daily) at the same time several years ago. Actually kicked benzos and opiates together. Boy howdy was that fun.

Hello Kato and welcome to the forum. Kato since you are new and have posted your intro on someone's else's thread I am going to ask you to start your own intro post so that all members will see it and be able to give you a proper hello & welcome aboard.

To start a new post look to the left and you will see Post New Topic, click there and a heading slot will open, type in something there like new member with scrotum pain. Click again and an area will open and either type what you have written here or copy and paste the above and use it.

Thanks.......Susie

Hi heather, welcome to the forum. That's a pretty crazy ride you've had over the past couple of days, but it sounds like you've got things taken care of with your PM. That dose of morphine is quite a jump from the Butrans; IMHO, I found the strongest level of Butrans to be similar in strength to 10 mg of hydrocodone, and found it to be quite lacking in the pain relief end, with a long list of unpleasant side effects. I hope you find enough relief with the morphine.

Also, I dont know who your PM is, but to get you in this quickly, and to do that aggresive of a med change that quickly, it sounds like you definately have a good, caring doctor there; I'd fight to stay with this doctor as much as possible.

Take care, and keep us posted on things, and let us know how the new medication does for you.

Wow Heather, I apologize, but I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit (maybe I'm just that tired). From the wording of your post, I'd say that first pill (and possibly exhaustion too) hit you pretty hard last night. Please be careful while you're adjusting, I've only had an actual adjustment period to one medication, but it took about a week to get through that phase. Take care, and I hope this new medication works out for you.

Just read that in post Yoda's voice. It makes perfect sense that way.

Hi there...

I feel similar to Straydog in that they put you on a very high dosage of Morphine to start which can actually be quite dangerous.

Most Drs. when switching to any new medication start very low and then tirate up as needed. I am on only 75mg to 90mg of Morphine but this is after close to 11 years in pain management and medication!

The other thing that is crucial to pain management is that both you and the Dr. realize that the opiate is just one small piece of the puzzle in helping bring down your pain to a level 5 or so. If this Dr. is just throwing medication at you then I would be running the other way. This could accidentally build your tolerance level too quickly to opiates and then not leave you room in the years to come if this is needed long term.

The other ways to help reduce pain is daily exercise, yoga/stretching, injections, steroids, acupuncture, massage, aqua therapy, regular physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, ice, heat, a muscle relaxer if needed, eating health, maintaining a good weight, not smoking, etc....

Each one of these things can bring down the pain level a tiny bit and then mixed with any medication can get to that 5.

And if you are maxed out on the Neurontin and it isn't helping anymore...then there are other nerve pain medications to try.