Fentanyl Toxicity & Fibromyalgia

[Back pain doctor]

I am sorry to hear about what happened to your step daughter.

[MourningMother]

There is no such thing as fibromyalgia, and there is no such thing as fentanyl toxicity except through massively extreme overdose.

To overdose on an opioid like fentanyl would require a truly profound and expensive amount of the drug. It would take hours to die from it, and it would be easily curable at any point in that time with a single injection of naloxone, or another opioid receptor antagonist.

It is essentially impossible to overdose on opioid analgesics unless it's intentional. The safety profile for opioids is extremely high. Fentanyl has a therapeutic index of over 200. By my math, someone would need to be wearing over 100 fentanyl patches of the highest potency to die of an overdose.

Dear sir,
As someone who has battled M.E. and FMS for 39+ years I am quite prepared to show how completely wrong you are on our first comment regarding fibromyalgia. But I'm used to trolls by this point and am currently dealing with a much bigger issues...your comments regarding fentanyl could kill someone they are so wrong. How do I know this? I can provide you with my 20 year old son's death certificate, whom I just buried two weeks ago. Or if you should be so disrespectful as to suggest that my son was somehow responsible, not knowing anythng about the case yourself, then merely research it through the FDA itself. They KNOW the patches are unsafe. There have been multiple recalls, Thousands of deaths and yet for reasons God only knows and we can all guess..they have sat back and the only action taken has been to have their watch dog keep an eye on the companies and the product...I have to ask..why didn't they stop it sooner so my son would still be here? How many deaths does it take before it's murder?

They will all go home tonight a bit wealthier, play with their children, hug their families and my son's name won't even ring a bell to them. They won't lay in bed longing for him to pop his head in and tell them "good night mom Love you!" No, they got their money. I however lost my son due to their greed and they won't lose one wink of sleep over it.

People need to know just how dangerous fentanyl patches are. I deal with daily pain myself. I push strongly for better pain management but it's got to be safe..and these are not. I cannot plead with you enough...if you are on these patches PLEASE realize the great risk you are taking and try a different avenue

[MourningMother]

While I can't support the assertions regarding fentanyl toxicity, there is still much debate whether "fibromyalgia" is in fact a disease, a condition, or merely a constellation of symptoms. The word itself is somewhat suspicious- fibro (fibrous material in the body) and myalgia (pain). http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainMan...4138715&page=2

The originator of the term used it to express to patients having these symptoms that they suffered from an actual medical condition. This was important for patients to accept and allow treatment for their pain. He has subsequently disavowed intending for "fibromyalgia" to become a recognized disease, but merely confirmational that some patients have unexplained pain. (Maybe what used to be called "aging".)

I first became ill at the age of 13. Was finally dx'd at the age of 16 and have only got progressively worse. I was not "lazy". Despite my disease I graduated with honors a year early and started college on my 16th birthday. Would you call this "aging"? Now depending on the presenting symptoms at the time I am also dx'd with ME ( CFS), another disease some claim is the same others say is different than FMS but still faces the same ignorance. Itis difficult enough to adapt one's life with the pain and unimmaginable exhaustion and other myriad of symptoms I face daily but to have to defend one's character as well to people who have no clue only makes it worse. What I would like to know is WHY is it any concern of yours? Do you have nothing better to do than go around "virtually" kicking very sick people and their families who are already struggling to exist? Let's suppose that it is a mental illness (WHICH IT IS NOT..AUTOPSIES HAVE PROVEN IT TO BE OTHERWISE) BUT let's give you that..mental illness is still a severe illness, one which your bullying could have horrible reprocussions. So again I ask..Why you feel the need to go around throwing your extremely wrong, very uneducated two cents on this subject in? Have you given ANY thought to the harm you could be doing?