I was on 60mg of Avinza for 3 or 4 months for severe fibromyalgia pain. The dosage was not high enough for me, but it was giving me more constipation and a drowsy feeling than I wanted. I have taken morphine lots over the last five years and it’s never been the most effective painkiller for me, so that’s ultimately why I wanted to try something else without trying a higher dose of the Avinza first. But I would recommend it for chronic pain. It certainly doesn’t take it all away (maybe about 65% of it for me), but it took the edge off. Worth a shot. Extremely expensive though.

MS contin with Breakthrough MSIR Using narcotics for pain management is a last step plan in my opinion.
Everything else should be ruled out as having been tried and failed prior to going the route of addictive analgesics.
However, having said that, and finding myself taking them I have to say that I have never felt less pain and continuous relief, rarely needing or using breakthrough instant release morphine sulphate. The cost may be prohibitive to some but IMO it is worth it for the relief in day to day living without the ups and downs other narcotics can give you… you have no highs or lows with ‘contin’ MS just constant and steady pain relief. IMO…. this gets an 8 for pain relief and long term relief!

MSContin 200mg/tid i’ve been on this dosage for almost two years, and it is working well for me–i did not get here overnight. I’ve been tried on every type ofagonist narcotic that is made, and although fentanyl works well, it is also 100 x more potent than morphine–so the withdrawal is also equally as bad; the patches used to come off when i sweated bad–usually in the summer months…i was tried on the Actiq 400mcg lozenges, but my insurance would not pay for them–and they were $12.00 each!! so i went back on ms contin, and even though it’s not cheap, it is more “bang for the buck”–my insurance pays, so i go that route…after a while, the pain and the meds tend to balance each other out; i’m content w/treatment, dose, side effects, etc. (i was ran off the road by hit and run driver over a curb and smackdab into a telephone pole–i actually heard my back breaking when my head hit the windshield–sounded like someone breaking a popsickle
stick in your ear!!) after they removed the L-4, L-5 disc,(massive rupture), into my spinal dura, and the sciatic nerve joining section, they said there was a piece of disc material still there,
and it had push its way into the bottom of my cord/nerve root…at this point, they said ‘freak accid.’ & all, but there’s is nothing more they could do 4 me surgically–referred to pain mgmt. “they said my mri was so wrecked, they were’nt sure where to start, w/o paralyizing me–at least i can still walk-with a cane. so in the blink of an eye my whole life changed at that point…but now i live the best that i can, and countinue to put up w/ms…tom.28 mar 2006