If fentanyl is so dangerous, why is it used in hospitals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When used as a pain killer for cancer pain, that is where most of it goes - to solve that problem. When used without the underlying pain, it goes elsewhere and causes issues, like with ANY other medication.

What is frightening is how much hospitals push fentanyl on patients, at least post surgery, because they don’t want to have to deal with a whiff of complaining about pain.

When I asked a nurse a couple of days post serious surgery for Tylenol, I was told that I had to wait another 10 minutes because they could only dispense it every 4 hours, on the dot. However please push the fentanyl pump in the meantime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fentanyl is a street drug because it can be made easily by drug cartels and transported easily because it's so potent. It's not coming from hospital supplies.

It’s made in China.

Drug cartel? No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When used as a pain killer for cancer pain, that is where most of it goes - to solve that problem. When used without the underlying pain, it goes elsewhere and causes issues, like with ANY other medication.

What is frightening is how much hospitals push fentanyl on patients, at least post surgery, because they don’t want to have to deal with a whiff of complaining about pain.

When I asked a nurse a couple of days post serious surgery for Tylenol, I was told that I had to wait another 10 minutes because they could only dispense it every 4 hours, on the dot. However please push the fentanyl pump in the meantime.

I was hospitalized overnight for a minor surgery and asked for non-narcotic painkiller. The nurse basically ignored me and put the morphine into my IV anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aren’t street drugs being laced with fentanyl? That’s why users are overdosing. A hospital setting is very different. If nurses started mixing in fentanyl when they administered Tylenol those patients would be dying too.

Yes, the danger of fentanyl is the easy overdosing and contamination of street drugs. That's not happening at the hospital because they know what they're giving you.

I've had fentanyl precisely once as part of a spinal block. There's no reason to tie anesthesiologists' hands on a medication they use safely for surgery every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was designed to keep cancer patients comfortable and pain free at the end of life. Used appropriately it can still perform that function.

This.

When my friend died in home hospice, someone instantly came to take her patches into custody. I think they arrived before her mom finished calling her siblings.

Her mom was okay with it though. Within a couple hours the house was full of mourners and no one wanted to have to think about whether Cousin Larlo was looking through drawers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does Ziggy from 3rd Avenue administer the fentanyl in hospitals?

OMG I love you. LMAO

Some doctors are more competent than others. Ask me how I know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was about to have a minor medical procedure and discovered that they were going to use Fentanyl to "put me under." By coincidence, the newspaper that morning had a front page article (above the fold) about overdoses in the DMV. When I raised this issue with the anesthesiologist, I got a nasty earful about how I was not to question the doctor's expertise. Thanks, Doc.

I am amazed at the piling-on by DCUM criticizing your legitimate concern. Every patient has the right -- even the obligation -- to engage in a serious and honest dialog with their health-care professionals. We are told to be responsible for our own well-being -- exercise, eat right, lose weight, don't smoke. But when you go to a hospital, you become an ignorant doofus whom they treat with condescension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does Ziggy from 3rd Avenue administer the fentanyl in hospitals?

No, but Javier from the Sinola cartel is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't help that the police perpetuate stories that they got sick from touching a single microscopic grain of fentanyl or by even being in the same room as it. It makes it seem like it is dangerous to even be around.

My mom died of cancer. At the end she had a fentanyl patch. It helped her. I was grateful.

Same, my mom was up to 2 patches when she died and they said the dosage could go much higher. She only had a few months to live. Nobody cared if she became addicted because she wasn’t going to beat the cancer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Funny story: my (then) 15 year old daughter had major surgery and when she woke up, still very groggy and incoherent, they told her they were putting Fentanyl in her IV for the pain. Her eyes got really wide and she yelled “whoa whoa whoa, isn’t that the stuff that kills you?!” It was so ingrained in her as a teenager she almost refused it. We will laugh about her drunk sounding voice yelling “whoa!”

Frankly, OP, you should be applauding her. More patients should question the use of fentanyl as a first line pain killer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doctor here.

Fentanyl on the street kills people bc it makes you unconscious and suppresses your breathing.

When we use fentanyl in the hospital, it is in the context of intubation and a ventilator. A you don’t die. You remain unconscious while the ICU or surgical team does things you couldn’t tolerate while awake even with painkillers, such as positive pressure ventilation and operating on you.

Please be honest. Does the hospital profit more from using opiates compared to non-opiods on patients? This push to take fentanyl, even when not necessary, has to be money driven.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny story: my (then) 15 year old daughter had major surgery and when she woke up, still very groggy and incoherent, they told her they were putting Fentanyl in her IV for the pain. Her eyes got really wide and she yelled “whoa whoa whoa, isn’t that the stuff that kills you?!” It was so ingrained in her as a teenager she almost refused it. We will laugh about her drunk sounding voice yelling “whoa!”

Frankly, OP, you should be applauding
her. More patients should question the use of fentanyl as a first line pain killer.

I ABSOLUTELY celebrated this!!! I was so glad she questioned it (even when half sedated). Shows her values and that she actually takes her health/addiction seriously.

[Anonymous]

Echoing others so i wont repeat, but remember that street fentanyl isn't pure and has been laced at least 2x before street use

You'll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Echoing others so i wont repeat, but remember that street fentanyl isn't pure and has been laced at least 2x before street use

You'll be fine.

Laced with what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are so many other meds that can relieve pain and aren’t as dangerous.

You've clearly never known the pain of cancer that has mets to the bone.

+1 in the final weeks of his life, my dad was in such agony that the maximum dose of morphine didn’t touch his pain. He stayed on the morphine and a fentanyl patch was added. He was still in pain, so a higher dose fentanyl patch was prescribed, still in combination with the maximum dose of morphine. Up until 6 weeks before he died, my dad wouldn’t even take Tylenol. I thank God that there were multiple options for treating his pain. It was traumatic to witness.