Placement of the patch is very important. I found putting them where I feel pain doesn't work. You have to put the patch
over the major nerve distribution instead.

If you feel the pain in the abdomen, where exactly? The most likely place to put it is on your back where the nerve root is, for that area.

Looking at a dermatome map may help:
(there used to be a great nerve only graph on the net, that I linked to but the site changed it and it is no longer there)

Try this:
http://www.theodora.com/anatomy/the_...ic_nerves.html

The black dots in this drawing show the nerve roots--the home base of the nerves that go to various places in the body. The lower lumbar area, goes to the lower abdomen, and the lower thoracic goes to the upper abdomen. You have two targets to try.
Place a whole patch vertically just to the side of the spine over these nerve roots, for better relief. The patch is long enough to hit at least 5 nerve roots at a time. Put the first attempt just with the edge of the patch touching the center of your spine and the main part of the patch to the left of that area. If you are too low, with that one, next time raise it up along the back so you are hitting the next 5 vertebrae up. Since your pain is on the left, do the left side of the spine. This is where the pain is coming from most likely and catching the signals there along the spine is more successful. These nerve roots are the pain generators for most neuropathic pain. The nerve roots are where the Zoster virus lives that creates shingles, for example.

Placing the patch over the abdomen in front, typically will do nothing. Placing patches where you "feel" the pain does nothing many times...because the pain is being generated elsewhere along the major nerve in the body. I had to try several places for my MP pain before I found the right spot. Doctors are typically clueless about this, and even the drug reps who sell the patches cannot answer placement questions I have discovered.