Oxycodone

[mackmann]

I saw Dr. Buckfurer who put me on Oxycodone and morphine sulfate starting the first of the year. Because my QT Interval is 403 he thought that too high for methadone therapy. I’m starting on low doses of both but quite frankly don’t think that’s going to work as I’ll be going off 1.25 of Requip cold turkey.

The oxy. will work at the correct dose which may be higher than I want initially, but hopefully I should be able to lower the dose as the Requip gets out of my system. My issue is short acting oxy. taken at bedtime (5 mg.) doesn’t stop the RLS for more than an hour and doesn’t allow me to sleep. Hence the morphine sulfate which hopefully will work for sleep.

My question is would it be worthwhile to go to oxy. extended release and take in a couple of hours before bed I’m the hopes it would control my symptoms and allow sleep. If that works I could forget the morphine.

Any input woild be appreciated.
Mackmann

[Polar Bear]

I can't answer the question about the oxy/methadone but I'm sure someone will answer that soon.
However with regard to the requip I'm wondering why you are coming off cold turkey and not weaning off. In my opinion at a dose of 1.25 requip you would have an easier time if you wean.

[mackmann]

That’s what I suggested but Dr. Buckfurer said that’s like pulling a bandage off slowly; it’s better to do it in one shot.
I think I may try weaning because I’m concerned about sleep.
My larger concern is that I tried a single dose of morphine sulfate and went to bed at 10:00 but didn’t get to sleep until 1:30

[Rustsmith]

Officially, the half life of morphine is 2-4 hrs. However, there have been studies that have shown it to be as much as 15 hrs. So, you might try taking it just after dinner with the idea that the alerting side effect wears off before bedtime but that it is still effective enough to control your need to move around.

As for stopping requip, so long as you are not coming down from a large dose, you may be able to get by stopping cold turkey since the morphine and oxy will cover most of the requip withdrawal symptoms.