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Original poster

Fentanyl Patches and side effects

6 replies

hiddenhome · 14/05/2011 21:59

Has anyone here any personal experience of Fentanyl Patches?

MIL has a lot of pain in her hip/knee which can't be replaced because she's a poor anaesthetic risk. I can tell she's in a lot of pain despite taking painkillers.

The next step is opiods which she would like to avoid, but I don't really see how she can long term.

I use Fentanyl Patches at work on the elderly clients that I nurse, but have no personal experience of the side effects. One of my clients gets on very well with her patches and doesn't appear to be more tired/dopey etc. The other clients aren't really in a position to describe how they feel on them because they're so frail or have dementia Sad

I am mainly concerned about MIL's mobility as she would be a significant falls risk if she was dopey.

I'd like to try to get her to use a TENS machine, but I'm not sure she'd be interested, as she's quite self conscious about her body and I don't know how she'd feel about me showing her how to use it.

OP posts:
higgle · 14/05/2011 22:18

I work in care - they can cause diarrhoea. Apart form a couple of people I am aware of that have had that problem the others all seem to have done well on them.

ThingOne · 15/05/2011 14:30

I had them for several months and thought they were great. Oral morphine can make me feel quite sick so I was very impressed by the patches. There was an adjustment period but other than that it was fine.

Original poster
hiddenhome · 15/05/2011 16:02

Thank you. I might talk to MIL about them. She's seeing her GP this week, so she could talk to her about it.

OP posts:
sazza76 · 15/05/2011 23:29

I've been on Fentanyl patches for 5 years now after trying many other opiates. They are by far the best that I have tried, because its a constant release you dont get any of the main side effects of opiates. Once I was used to them (took only a few days) I had no side effects at all. The best thing about them is that they don't give your pain a chance to get to its worst before you take a pain killer so you dont get the peaks and troughs in your pain levels either.

sazza76 · 15/05/2011 23:34

Just to add, they don't like to start people on Fentanyl unless they are used to opiates in some form already as going from no opiates to having 24 hour a day opiates is a big jump. They also like to start people on the very lowest dose and then increase it gradually if their pain is still not controlled.
Also if she is in enough pain to be having opiates she should definately be seen in a pain clinic by a specalist. They may have other things they can do to help and are by far the best people to discuss it with.
Feel free to message me if I can help with anything, I was a nurse until chronic pain hit me and I have sadly gained too much knowledge about chronic pain since!

onlyjoking9329 · 16/05/2011 18:50

I've been on these patches for a few months now, I have to take lactulose as it makes me constipated.
Pain clinic sounds a good idea. Hope you can get something sorted for her.

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