New Here and struggling with medication change

Hi everyone,

I have end stage arthritis in both hips and lupus. I was prescribed Avinza by my primary care doc a few years ago. I didn't even know what I had until I went to the pharmacy and they looked at me kind of weird. I found out that it was time release morphine. Until then, I had been on hydrocodone 5mg for pain as needed and never took more than 1 or 2 a day.

Fast forward a few years to a couple of weeks ago. My insurance no longer covered Avinza. I found out that the maker decided to discontinue it because it now can be a generic. They came out with another drug called Embeda that my doctor switched me to. I filled the script, but a few days later had horrible headaches on a daily basis. I don't know why, but I do know that the new medication has another ingredient to discourage crushing it.

So I called the doctor and asked if I could get something else. My pharmacy always has to order what he gives me, so I got enough to get through until the new script came in. This time he ordered Nucynta, 100mg 2 times per day. When I picked up the script and looked up what it was, I found out it was a tweaked tramadol, and has a SNRI effect, which messes with your brain, chemistry, like Savella and Cymbalta do. I have not been able to take that kind of medicine. It makes me have extreme tummy issues and makes me feel weird. But I bit the bullet, so to speak, and took the stuff.

After a couple of days I was sick as a dog. I think I was withdrawing from the time release morphine. Even though Nucynta acts on the morphine receptors it is a different medication. I started to sweat, have panic attacks, couldn't sleep, had diarrhea and nausea and felt like I was going out of my mind. When I tried to sleep, I had insomnia, restless legs and was totally miserable. I put up with it over the weekend and on Monday I called my doctor. He said that I might need a higher dose, so he told me to bring in the rest of the 100 mg pills and he would write another script for 150 mg, twice a day.

Now it's a week later and I still haven't gotten the new script. The pharmacy ordered it, but it didn't show up, so they reordered it yesterday. If it doesn't come in tomorrow I will be totally out of meds. My doc took the rest of my other lower dose Nucynta ER. I'm already feeling sick because today I only had 2 pills and he had upped me to three. I called the office today and the secretary just said that she'd tell the doc, when I told her the pharmacy may not get my medication tomorrow.

I'm so upset! It's like my doctor doesn't care that I am suffering. I didn't ask to be put on heavy duty meds like he ordered. What should I do tomorrow if the pharmacy doesn't get the new order and the doctor won't do anything? I feel so panicky and angry with that doctor for putting me through this ordeal.

I'm almost 60 years old and I am raising my 9 year old special needs grandson who has ADHD and is quite a pistol.

Hello & welcome to Healing Well. Sorry to read about what you are dealing with. But, as WhiteBeard said, don't go down the rabbit hole of what if.

Something I suggest that you do from this point on, whenever your dr changes your medications up, ask what the new medication is so that you will know what is being rx'd. That way if it something that doesn't agree with you, then you can say hey dr I cannot take that particular medication & you won't be chasing around as you are. You should always read the inserts & the printout from the pharmacy on any medication you take. There is enough information given when you pick up your medication that you can educate yourself on your medications. We are as responsible for knowing what we are taking as the dr that rx's them to us.

I am guessing this is your primary care dr that is rxing your medications, if so that is a rarity these days. Surely you have read & heard about all of the hype on the news the past several years about the war on drugs, the high death rates connected with prescription pain medication. The FDA has guidelines for rxing these medications & all of the red tape including a monitoring program. They know what dr rx's pain meds & & who to. Because of all of the red tape this is why most primary care drs will not take care of a chronic pain patient long term. It is a very strict & controlled environment these days. This is why your dr had you bring the unused pain medications in to his office.

Hopefully all of this will get taken care of tomorrow.

There are a number of manufacturers that make time released morphine tablets that don't contain naltrexone . Maybe one from another company would work better. Avinza was discontinued by it's manufacturer Pfizer. Pfizer told the FDA that they wanted to discontinue it because it was not abuse deterrent and Embada was.

I had the same problem when I tried Nucynta a few years ago. I was on 60mg MS Contin twice per day and I started with the 100mg as well. Had to go thru a miserable weekend in pain and withdrawal. I was on my Doctor's doorstep at 8:00 that Monday morning begging for my morphine back.

It has been so long, I can't remember why he wanted me to try it. We also tried Avinza around that time and I only took one dose of that because it made me feel very unwell. Felt sort of like having a panic attack and at the same time feeling like there was something terribly wrong with me. So much so that I almost went to the ER. I had MS Contin left so I went right back on it. Since Avinza is Morphine, my doctor figured I must be sensitive to one of the fillers in it or something.

I am a "What if" person too. While I realize it isn't good to think that way all the time, when you are physically dependent on these meds, you have to be prepared for whatever happens and have a backup plan.

If the meds don't come in and for some reason your Doctor won't do anything, you can always go to the ER and explain what happened which they can check with the pharmacy and confirm and ask if they can give you enough Percocet or Hydrocodone or whatever they are comfortable with to get you by. I have had a scenario or two where I had to do this and they were perfectly willing to help for the short term.

Please let us know how things go. It will all work out.

Cindy

PS..If it is a PM Doc you are seeing, be sure and call them before filling anything from the ER. I talked to the nurse at my PM before I went and then before I filled the script just to be sure all was OK with them.

Post Edited (n2braves) : 4/9/2016 2:04:42 AM (GMT-6)