Hi OCG, I was addicted to fentanyl for a very short time (just over a month) but I have a fairly long history of opiate abuse and was seriously abusing fentanyl and using, intranasally, at least 20 mg a day towards the end of that binge. I can only tell you that codeine, hydrocodone and morphine did not even make a dent in my withdrawals - doses that would have probably made me very sick or OD only a few weeks before.
If you've been taking 75mcg patches as RX'd, that is, one patch transdermally for three days, your ingestion has been less than 3 mg a day - but due to the nature of the fentanyl molecule, which has an extremely high affinity for the receptors in your brain, I doubt any lesser opioid will help you much. BUT NEVER FEAR!!! Using opioids to 'soften' your w/d, as many here will tell you, really just draws the addiction and the w/d out.
As others have said, the only thing to do is talk to your doctor about it. If he still resists you (most docs are only too happy to reduce/take people off scheduled drugs like this), ask him to refer you to someone else, or (after you've gotten your script of course, don't get left high and dry with this!) go to another doc yourself. We can give you lots of anecdotal and first-hand advice here, but it isn't a substitute at all for a qualified physician, especially one with an interest or specialty in this area. I would imagine that a detox plan for you would involve switching to smaller patches gradually and then jumping off.
If you do decide to cold turkey it, get plenty of benzos and at least 7 days with absolutely nothing else to do
I need to be able to work, and take care of the kids while detoxing so any advice would be appreciated
The only way I see this happening is if you work out an extremely long taper off fentanyl onto other opioids, but bear in mind every time you lower your dose or switch to a weaker narcotic, you're going to feel pretty shit for...a week. Best to get it over and done with really. If you're talking about getting off fent completely, which I think you are, you're going to have to take a few days off work, ideally a full five working days, plus weekends either side, there's no real way to come off without suffering some of the inevitable, sorry to say. The best w/d I've had have all involved plenty of benzodiazepines - valium/serepax/xanax to get to sleep and deal with the anxiety
Benzos for me anyway were the only thing that did
anything noticeable during w/d.
You're in for a rough time, but the thing about fentanyl is that what makes it so addicting (very short half life) also makes the withdrawals much shorter than other opioids.
From your post, you don't seem like most people here, I'd be really interested to know (if you don't mind me asking) - is there anything about the feeling of the drug that you like? If the answer to that is 'no, apart from the pain relief', I'd also be extremely interested to hear later if you experience anything like depression or anxiety after the w/d have finished, (post-acute withdrawal syndrome).
Wishing you the absolute best,
buffalo
