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@sunnyflower

Hi Jim, what would you say the differences are between Dilaudid AKA Hydromorphone and morphine? Dilaudid is stronger I know but why can't you take IV morphine? Just wondering if you have some sort of reaction to it? Or, if it just doesn't do the trick. Usually, when a patient asks for a medication by name, that is a red flag to the staff doctor patient is drug seeking.

Just an FYI, it was when I was in post-op recovery from surgery that I suffered so. So far I 've been treated well in the ERs.

Are you familiar with cross-tolerance? When one opiate won't let another have the effect that it should? They block each other's receptor sites. That happens a lot in medicine and unfortunately, there are a great deal of providers to do not understand that. When a patient has been taking an opiate for a long time and they have tolerance to it, the doctor will add a different opiate for the pain such as in post-op recovery, but one opiate blocks the other's receptor sites so the different opiate is essentially ineffective or not optimally effective.

Good luck at your appointment and be sure to let us know how it goes. I am worthy of being vascular surgery today for my greater than 50% stenosis brachial artery which is considered rare as less than 5% of people have it. My concern is the cause of it and I'm praying it is not peripheral artery disease which is the most common cause.

Take Good Care, Sunnyflower

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Replies to "Hi Jim, what would you say the differences are between Dilaudid AKA Hydromorphone and morphine? Dilaudid..."

@sunnyflower

I have hallucinations when I'm given Morphine IV. I read both online and the paper information that comes with a medication, especially to look for possible interactions and side effects. Sometimes I experience things listed as interactions and side effects, but that's pretty rare, I'm happy to say.

Jim

You can tell the potency of the opioids by looking at MME chart. It’s what we (pharmacists) use to calculate equivalencies between the drugs when figuring out equal doses when advising doctors about changing from one drug to another.

MME = morphine MilliEquivalents
It’s the standard units of measurement of Opioid pain relief.

Mg = milligram and mcg=microgram
It’s the standard unit of strength of medication, most medications including opioids