New pain med question about dosage? - Pain Management Message Board

katnapz · 08-15-2005, 08:56 AM

hello
This is my first post on here.....have tried to find information about conversion with different medications and I think that mine is too low....just wanted some thoughts about this.
I have been taking Percocet daily for awhile now and it just isn't helping as much as it used to. My Dr. wanted to try me on Oxycontin 40mgs x2 day (=80mgs per day) To make a long story short my insurance wouldn't cover them ( only if I had already tried another time released pain medication and it didn't work) So instead, my Dr. had to re-write the perscription for MS Contin, which after all the confusion I did finally get, but when I started doing research on it i found it to be too low a dose in comparison to the original Oxycontin perscription, it is 15mg x2 per day =30mgs per day.....compared to the Oxycontin of 40mgs x2 = 80mgs. From what I have read am I correct in assuming that the Ms Contin should have been a higher dose?
I was still perscribed Percocets for BT pain, which I am thankful for because the MS Contin doesn't seem to help very much. I was hoping that when I was switched to the Time-released med that I would no longer have to take the percocets or at least not as often, but I still have to take them 4x a day but have cut back to just 1 pill instead of 2 at a time only because I am concerned about taking too much.
Any thoughts about the dosage would be helpful. (Maybe I am just having a really really bad pain week and the dosage is in fact correct?) or do you think through all the pharmacy and insurance confusion my Dr could have just wrote it not thinking about the comparison in strengths between the two?
Katnapz

madhatter · 08-16-2005, 07:19 AM

You should ask your doc., but my experience with ms.cotin[morphine] i didn't get much relief. That was the first long term med. my doc. tried,i told him that lortab worked better.To bad your insurance didn't cover the oxycotin,that med. works well for me,goodluck!

Vuitton70 · 08-16-2005, 02:20 PM

I didn't get any relief from MS contin either. Just got side effects-yech! Talk to your Dr. maybe if the ms contin fails then your ins. will cover the other med. HTH

Shoreline · 08-16-2005, 03:27 PM

Hi Kat, I wouldn't say morphine isn't an effective me. Different meds work on different people and the type of pain makes a dffernce. Having tried the weakest dose and it not working really isn't an honest trial of the med. INMSContin comes in 15mg, 30mg,m 60 mg 100 mg and 200 mg. You may need considerably more morphine but I wouldn't write it of because the wqeakest dose didn't work. Give it a week and call your doc and let him know your not getting much relief and still relying heavily on the percocet. No doc gets the dose correct simply by looking at you and guessing, and that's basically what they are doing during the process of finding the ight dose. The manufacturer of OxtYcntin is vcery firmabout 12 hour dosing wheand it simply doesn't last, However 3 times a day dsong is more exceptable and you won't have to fight your doc , insurance or even your pharmacist over the way Oxy is supposed to be prescribed versus the way LA morphine is prescribed. You have lots of room to move up , It doesn't happen over night but if you have chronic pain, it's not like you woke up and can't stand ne more day. You have a doc treating you, it's just a matter of adjusting the dose to on that works. They also make 12 and 24 hour versions of morphine. SO I wouldn't write off morphine quite so quick. I got minimal relief from my initial dose or LA morphine, It had to be trippled over a period of about 6 weeks, Docs tend to start low especially if it's a drug you haven't taken bfore.

Persoanlly if I had a choice of taking any dose of Oxy twice a day or any dose of morphine 3 times a day, I would prefer not to have the huge ups and downs between twice a day dosing of oxy. Give the doc a chance to do his job and work at finding a right dose before giving up on a med that may be the one you really respond to best given the proper dose.
Good luck, Dave.