narcotic taper update

[melodyl]

Hi All,

I posted several weeks ago about the difficulty I was having with tapering off of fentanyl and oxycodone. Yesterday I drove to Seattle to see a pain management expert at the UWMC and thought I would share his advice. First of all.....I managed to get completely off of the fentanyl patches about 3 weeks ago.....however, I increased the amount of oxycodone I had been taking (and added in clonidine) to help minimize the withdrawal symptoms I was having. Current amount of IR oxycodone is 60 mgs a day in divided 5 mg. doses. Because the oxy is short acting, I have been waking up in mild withdrawal every morning. The PM dr. I saw suggests I convert half the dose (30 mg) to the longer acting oxycontin by taking three (10 mg) a day. That way I would have a low but steady dose in my body all the time which should make it easier to reduce the IR oxycodone by 5 mg. a week. When I get down to just the oxycontin, I would have to go back to the oxycodone for the last part of the taper. He also said to use the clonidine only when needed. If my heart is racing and I am sweating, the clonidine should make me feel "normal" relatively quickly...however, if I took clonidine without those symptoms, I would feel tired and lethargic. I hope this makes sense? And I hope it might be helpful to others who have been taking narcotics and want to decrease or stop using them after recovering from surgery.

I want to echo whoever recently posted how much support we get from this site! I love reading everyones posts and also wish we could all get together in person some time for "gently hugs".

Melody