Hi Desi,
I thought I would pop in and give you my two cents of this patch since I have been wearing it for over two years now. I had tried all the other pain meds like morphine and Oxycontin which did not work all the time for me. I decided to try the Fentanyl because I needed round the clock pain relief. I started out with 50 mcg (micro grams) make sure you say mcg's verus mg (milligrams) because they are two different things. 50 mg is much stronger than 50 mcg so you need to be careful because if you told the wrong person that it could mean an overdose for you. Fentanyl is very strong even though you may not feel it working...it does take about 17 hours for each patch to start working full force. If you read the brochure enclosed with each box you will get some good information. I am now down to 25 mcg's for over a year now. I was taking all kinds of pain meds to see what would work and this is the one for me. Some advice I could give you which may save your life is do not put the patch on and take a bath or a shower right away. You must wait at least two hours before you can take a bath or shower. You have to watch the sun so it doesn't heat your body up and cause the medicine to release quicker. Also, if you have an electric blanket you may not want to use it with it. I always have to watch for anything that may increase my body temperature will increase the pain medicine release in the patch. Also, I believe the brochure says if you develop a fever you must immediately go into the ER.

I had a problem two years ago when I was in the hospital the neurologist insisted I needed 2 - 50 mcg's of Fentanyl patches and I kept telling him it was too much for me. He disagreed and slapped them on to me. Well, the hospital was giving me all kinds of pain meds, anti-depressants, morphine and with enhancers to make the morphine stronger and then sent me home. I don't remember about 4 days and almost died from an overdose because of the second patch. My 16 year old son knew something was wrong with me because I kept passing out. So, he and a friend drove me to the ER. All I remember is them yanking off both patches and they kept me in the Telemetry Unit for a few days. They overdosed me. The worst part was when my family got there and they told them what happened. My family thinks I tried to take my life when I didn't because the hospital never told them THEY overdosed me. They forgot to leave that part out!!! Amazing. I don't want to scare you but I want you to be aware of your body temperature at all times. Like in the summer, you do not want to sit outside especially in the sun because your body temperature will go out to quickly and you can have a heart attack. Also, I knew someone who took off a patch and then put a fresh one on the same spot. She almost died too from an overdose. So, when you take one patch off of one upper arm [where I put mine] then make sure you put the new patch on the other arm. Good luck and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me. Fentanyl works quite well for me and lowers the pain a bit for me.
Best of luck,
Kathy d.