Dilaudid vs Morphine

dilaudid is said to be 5 times stronger then morphine
my Mother was on morphine then demerol and neather touched her pain like dilaudid

I WAS INVOLVED IN A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT 3 ALMOST 4 YRS AGO. I FRACTURED 3 VERTS AND BROKE MY NECK. C5 AND 6 ARE MILDLY SPURRED ACCORDING TO THE RADIOLOGIST. I HAVE BEEN SEEING A PAIN MGMT DOCTOR FOR ABOUT 1 1/2 YRS NOW. HYDROCODONE MOVED TO KADIAN AND KADIAN THEN MOVED TO METHEDONE. NOW METHEDONE HAS BEEN A VERY VERY GOOD PAIN KILLER FOR ME DEPENDING ON HOW BAD MY BACK IS HURTING BECAUSE OF WHAT I'VE DONE THAT DAY. NOW MY DOCTOR HAS LEFT, WORD IS THAT HIS LICENSE WAS REVOKED. WELL THAT DOCOTR PUT ME ON 360 PILLS A MONTH THAT BREAKS DOWN TO 12MG OF METHEDONE A DAY. ONCE AGAIN, I LOVED THE PAIN RELEIF. WELL METHEDONE PRETTY MUCH IS A DIRTY STREET DRUG AND THE REPLACING DOCTOR WANTS ME OFF THE METHEDONE WHICH I DO TOO. IT CONTROLLS MY LIFE. THE WITHDRAWLS ARE TOTALLY AGONIZING AND I WOULD RATHER DIE. WHEN I RUN OUT. WE ALL TAKE MORE THAN WE SHOULD SOMETIME DEPENDING ON OUR PAIN. WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST DRUG TO BE COMPERABLE TO 8MG OF METHEDONE, I HAVE WENT DOWN ON MY DOSES. 40 IN THE MORN AND 40 IN THE AFTERNOON. MY NEW DOCTOR PUT ME ON DILAUDID WHICH DOESNT DO ANYTHING. 4MG PILLS AT 1 TAB 2 TIMES A DAY WHICH IS LIKE TAKING A TYLENOL TO ME. MY TOLDERANCE IS THROUGH THE ROOF AND I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO OTHER THAN METHADONE WHICH ISNT AN OPTION ANYMORE. IM IN SO MUCH PAIN AND AM GUNNA BURN THROUGH THESE DILAUDIDS SO FAST ITS RIDICULOUS. THIS IS A VERY SCARY THING FOR ME TOO AND I NEED SURGERY BUT AM TERRIFIED, BUT KNOW I CANT BE ON MEDS FOREVER..........ANY IDEAS?

To the person who was in the motorcycle accident and was taking Methadone:

I think what might be causing you such frustration with the Diluadid is the twice a day dopsing. Idealy you should be taking 6 doses of Diluadid per day, due to its short duration of analgesic effect. Methadone doseing for pain should be twice a day or more. For the last year I have been on 10mg four times a day of Methadone for an MVA I was in early last year. For the first month after the accident I was taking 32-36 mg per day of Diluadid. Which I thought was a very effective pain reliever but tended to make me to drowsy so I was allowed by my Dr. to switch to Methadone. The thing about Methadone I like is that there is less of a "rollercoaster" like effect than the Diluadid especially good for people like me who have difficulty sleeping. And, I am not as drowsy.

I hope this helped, and if your Dr. won't work with you, GO ELSEWHERE it is your money

Hydromorphone is somewhat faster-acting and about eight times stronger than morphine and about three times stronger than heroin on a milligram basis.

No offense to The Geeze ;-) but Dilaudid is not three times stronger than Heroin it is about equal thats where Diluadid got the name "drugstore" Heroin. There are always exceptions to that though, some people may get better or worse analgesia from some opiates than another person. Watch the movie "Drugstore Cowboy" to get an idea of what addiction can spell for your future. I am not just making this up. I was addicted to Heroin for two years when I also would use Dilaudid or other opiates if I couldn't get any Heroin. Thanks to God I am free of the depths of Heroin addiction when I use to wake up every morning sick as a dog, throwing up with diarreah from the comedown after the shot the night before. At the worst I just wanted to die to end the junkie feeling and depression that comes with being hopelessly addicted. For anyone out there that feels like I did, please try METHADONE it WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Good luck to anyone in pain or addicted I have been to both places and there is hope so never ever give up! :-D

The key to your response is the exceptions. Here's an expansion on my original reply:



This modification of the morphine molecule results in a drug with higher lipid solubility and ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and therefore more rapid and complete central nervous system penetration, with the result that hydromorphone is somewhat faster-acting and about eight times stronger than morphine and about three times stronger than heroin on a milligram basis. The effective morphine to hydromorphone conversion ratio can vary from patient to patient by a significant amount with relative levels of some liver enzymes being the main cause; the normal human range appears to be from 8:1 to a little under 4:1. It is not uncommon, for example, for the 8-mg tablet to have an effect similar to 30 mg of morphine sulphate or a similar morphine preparation.

You are right. It is true that drugs with higher lipid solubility have more of an effect.



Also Heroin converts to Morphine once past the blood-brain barrier. This also causes more of an effect than Morphine. Since a little bit of Heroin converts to a lot of Morphine.



I am not sure how Dilaudid acts but would think it would be similar to Heroin.



Been There Done That



Thanks for your comment though. It was a good one!

Also, check this dosage converter out that I found. It's the best one I have ever seen.
:-D
globalrph.com/narcoticonv.htm

Dilaudid is stronger than morphine by far. Here is my scale from least to greatest relief:



Hydrocodone 10mg (ie Vicodin or Lortab)

Percocet 10mg

Morphine

Dilauded 2mg

Oxycodone (ie Roxicet) 15mg then 30mg

Fentanyl (patches weaker, lolypops or losenges much stronger)

I just had my gallbladder taken out last week. I had a pretty diseased gallbladder, so they had to open me up and take it out the old-fashioned way. I was given 2cc's of morphine post-op, but this would only last about an hour and I got cotton mouth pretty bad. They eventually changed my pain medication to 1cc of dilaudid, and it worked so much better than the morphine and lasted several hours at a time. I didn't like some of the initial side effects, though. When it was first injected into my IV, I could literally feel my heart rate and breathing slow, which is a little freaky the first time or two. After you feel your heart rate and breathing stabilize, you have a very euphoric feeling, and all the pain is gone. Even if there was pain, your mind is in such a state that you really don't care. It also made me very drowsy, which helped me get some good sleep despite having been gutted like a fish. The nurse told me that dilauded is about 10x more powerful than morphine, so if you're in a lot of pain, you might want to request this rather than the morphine.

That nurse needs to go back to school. Diluadid is ~4x's as potent as Morphine, not 10.

Please if you are gonna answer such questions for people concerning POTENT narcotic analgesics so someone dont wind up ODing on this stuff please know what you are talking about... k?

Oxycodone is not stronger than morphine. It takes 15mg of Oxycodone aka Percodan, Percocet, Oxycontin, Tylox, etc to equal 10mg of morphine. Furthermore, as far as people wondering what the conversion is based on equianalgesic charts and my own experience as well as having prescribed it myself Dilaudid is 10 times stronger than morphine. Taken P.O. the conversion is a little skewed vs. IV because of stomach acids etc but the bioavailability is very close to 93%. IV 1mg of Dilaudid is equal to 10mg of morphine, P.O. 1 to 1.5mg of Dilaudid equals roughly 10mg of morphine. Peak serum levels of immediate release Dilaudid are achieved rougly 1 to 1.5hrs post ingestion whereas with IM closer to 2 hrs and of course IV almost immediately.

It may be noted that hydromorphone is indeed a synthetic which was synthesized based around the metabolites produced by the human body post ingestion of hydrocodone aka lortab, vicodin, etc. Difference here being is because it so closely resembles that which the body makes bioavailable from lortab that the mu opioid receptors see it as virtually no different and dont have to do all this breaking down of these chemicals in order for them to bind to said receptors. Also, the synthesized version is very potent because there are no binders etc and since being synthesized in a lab it is very pure thus its quite potent. Another medication that was synthesized around this very principle was oxymorphone which as you might guess are the bioavailable metabolites post ingestion of oxycodone the active narcotic in oxycontin, percocet etc. Again, same thing less breaking down, more bioavailabilty, and a more potent drug. A good many of these drugs are very molecularly close to an extract from our good old friend paperverus somniferum the poppy. Specifically, the alkaline present that is being emulated by many of these drugs is thebaine. But goodness if you look and do a search across the net there are hundreds of compounds and some straight up chemicals that are made within very close proximity to all of the afforementioned. Some still used some banned and illegal because of their sheer potence and addiction potential. Some are still used in Germany (surprising huh? since at least 50% and prolly more than that are produced in Germany) and various other parts of Europe. Its by and large the US that has such stigmas and freakishness about giving people pain relief with medications that arent anti-inflammatory in nature and carry an FDA black label warning for potential cardiac issues some very severe. Dunno about you but I think I'd rather risk the potential of dependence as opposed to having an M.I. You stand a better chance of being weaned off the medication; however, percentage wise how good are your odds in surviving a massive myocardial infarction...

I suffer from horrible migraines and have built up a major tolerance to pain meds. When doing the dilaudid pills, I take 12 -16mg in conjunction with soma, imitrex, naprosyn, zofran and benadryl. Most of the time I can get it under control with just the oral meds. Other times, I have no such luck and require the ER for IV treatment. My initial IV injection is 4mg dilaudid, followed by 4 more in an hour. Most ER's balk at this dosage, but such circumstances have prompted me to carry a letter from my neuro. Due to the intense itching side effect, I take a healthy dose of benadryl. I do not suffer from any dependencies or addictions that one would expect from such a high dosage. I am lucky enough to have a neurologist that understands my difficulties. The one side effect that can be trying is the rebound headache. There is nothing more frustrating than getting another headache from your pain meds.

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My niece who is sufferng from terminal cancer is on both Morphine and Dilaudid. 30mg of Morphine every 3 hours and 2mg of Dilaudid.  The Morphine does not even touch the pain but the Dilaudin helps straight away. We want to keep her on the Dilaudin but the Drs want her off it and on Morphine alone before she goes home. Does anyone have an idea why they would want this when the Dilaudin works best.

take the morphine over time the effects will be consistant vs dilaudid. The dilaudid consistancy will vary it tends to build a resistance quicker, therefore requiring higher and higher dose each time. Whereas morphine also will eventually require more dosage but not as quickly as the dilaudid. Then again it makes a huge difference on manner using to inguest substance. Thats an entirerly different topic.