Getting off morphine

[wantokporo]

I have been taking 1mL morphine sulphate and 150 mg pregabalin with regular relief (not perfect of course) of my PLMD. The last months I have had terrible stomach issues, very likely some kind of irritable bowel thing (I have dormant Crohn's--this is not a flare--no elevated inflammation) and I am seriously experimenting with the low FODMAP diet to see if I can turn this around. I believe that the morphine slowing down my digestive transit time could have been contributing to the problem and want to get off of it. (I have been on the morphine for almost a year.)

My question is: I have reduced to .8mL morphine very slowly but going down even a bit further has started the legs again, not surprisingly. I wonder about increasing the pregabalin sooner and then reducing the morphine.

Any thoughts? (If you look at my history, I thought mistakenly the pregabalin had stopped working a while ago, but I was fortunately wrong.)

Thanks in advance.

[Madlegs1]

What form is the morphine you are taking.

Perhaps you can get a liquid form that can be microdosed?

Also - don't be afraid to take a rest from going down ,to allow your body to catch up.

It will take time--and you have to let your body- not your mind, dictate the pace of reduction.

Good luck.

[wantokporo in reply to Madlegs1]

It is liquid and I am microdosing, but I figure it is helping some so I expect I might never get adequate dosage as I reduce it.

[SueJohnson]

You can certainly increase the pregabalin, but I thought it caused nervousness for you. How much are you on?

[wantokporo in reply to SueJohnson]

150. Fortunately the nervousness was temporary.

[SueJohnson in reply to wantokporo]

Good to hear!

[wantokporo in reply to SueJohnson]

No kidding!! And it turns out that pregabalin is moderately contraindicated with Lisinopril which I take for high bp. My doctor and I decided to risk it because of the difficulties I have tolerating meds.

[wantokporo in reply to SueJohnson]

So if I increase the pregabalin to 175 it should become effective in how long?

[SueJohnson in reply to wantokporo]

Right away or at least in one day after you increase it. She has told you the symptoms to watch out for taking the two together hasn't she - swelling of the face, eyes, lips, tongue, throat.

[wantokporo in reply to SueJohnson]

Yes.

[LotteM]

Unfortunately, it will be all trial and error, as we are all different. But certainly according to general information, you have room to up the pregabalin dose, while remaining below the maximum dose for RLS. If you can cq. if your doctor agrees, you can experiment by upping the dose of pregabalin slowly and in small steps to see if that provides better coverage. If so, and if you RLS is well controlled you can restart reducing the morphine again.

Another option to discuss is to switch to another opioid. Buprenorphine works well and fast at low doses (given your 10mL morphine you may get by with a dose of 0.2mg or even half of that), and has generally less side effects compared to other opioids. If your doctor is open to it, it may be worth to try. If so, you can do a straight swap.

[wantokporo]

Thanks, LotteM. I can't tolerate most opiods unfortunately. Buprenorphine was horrible. I have very few options as I have a wonky CYP 2D6 enzyme issue.

[SwimLyn]

I'm afraid my experience with Pregabalin is very limited as only on a very small nightly dose (75mg) or last 3 months .So far it has helped sporadically but will probably have to increase incrementally every few months by 25mg to get the full benefit if any.

I don't take any other medication but lots of self help with cold foot baths/magnesiumcream/ vibration pads& yoga exercises & blood test monitoring of ferritin levels as recommended by this forum.

Hope this is of some help & good luck 👍