Hello fellow pain sufferers. I was prescribed Matrifen patches last Friday by my GP (I live in the UK, so an NHS patient) to cope with my chronic back, hip and nerve pain. I injured my back in 2017 after attempting to move some heavy furniture on my own, not the best idea for a 5'3" not-particularly-strong-in-the-slightest woman. After seeing a spinal surgeon a couple of weeks after the event and having MRI investigations it was apparent that I had suffered a completely prolapsed disc, and my vertebrae were not only bone on bone, but actually already splintering from erosion. This is likely because I suffered from malnutrition for several years due to eating problems in my teens/early 20s.

Unfortunately a few months after the initial injury I suffered a very bad fall and sustained a brain stem injury, leaving me with epilepsy which wasn't controlled until July 2019. In the meantime I had several more falls due to seizures, including one which badly damaged my hip. My most recent MRI scan in September last year showed that I have had a second disc prolapse and now have 3 vertebrae which are pretty much irretrievable destroyed. The only surgical solution would be a multi level spinal fusion, but due to the magnitude of such a procedure and my other health problems, coupled with my relatively young age (just turned 36) and the high failure rate of this type of surgery, this is all but impossible. The final nail in the coffin as regards to surgery was when I underwent a laparoscopy which had to be abandoned due to the amount of scar tissue in my abdomen, making spinal surgery pretty much impossible.

I've been on a high dose of codeine for 2.5 years, before that I was on Oramorph, however I stopped that due to it having an alcohol base because I have had issues with alcohol dependency in the past. Barring one minor relapse I'm on my 3rd year of sobriety - I was definitely using the alcohol to help cope with the pain and insomnia that the pain contributed to. In the last couple of years I have been on 224 x 30mg codeine every 28 days at least. In the past 8 months my pain has increased dramatically, to the point where I have had to stop going to work (luckily I'm still employed!) and have occasionally been on tramadol or sevredol (morphine tablets) for severe pain. I've been seen in a pain clinic whilst an in patient, but medicating the pain was the only option.

Last week I had the worst episode yet, where the pain prevented me from sleeping for 3 days and I experienced hallucinations due to sleep deprivation. I was lucky enough to speak to a very sympathetic and helpful GP at my doctors surgery who prescribed Matrifen patches at the lowest possible strength, which I began today. I would have started last week, but they are not an item that my pharmacy regularly stocks! I spent the whole weekend reading up about them, and getting pretty scared because of the horror stories about how easy it is to overdose or become addicted. I work in medicine and had only heard about fentanyl being prescribed for cancer patients or in end of life care, so I was quite surprised to find that they are also used in cases of chronic pain when opiate tolerant patients have stopped getting relief from weaker drugs.

I applied the first patch about 90 minutes ago and am yet to feel any difference, but I understand that it can take up to a couple of days before they start to work. However, I have read that some people feel relief within a few hours, and I expected that I would be in this group as most recently I've just been on codeine, the last time I took tramadol was around 2 weeks ago. I'd really appreciate hearing other people's experience with beginning fentanyl, as so much of the information or user experiences I have seen appears to discuss or be written from the perspective of people who abuse the drug. There seems to be very little information about people who are prescribed fentanyl for treatment of chronic pain who aren't suffering from terminal illness, or are self medicating with street preparations.

Thank you in advance if you're happy to share your experience, I haven't even told anyone apart from my brother that I am even beginning fentanyl due to all the bad press about it, so it would be very helpful to have an insight into what it's like to take it in a similar situation to mine!