Strongest painkiller one could find in a French hospital

[systemaurora]

Vampire is at an 11 on her pain scale but needs excessive pain meds to get any relief. I currently have her on morphine (and lots of it), but she's going to need something stronger soon. They're currently hiding in a closed off section of a hospital. The setting is France, 2000 or 2001

Comments

[elfbert]

I'm pretty sure both Morphine and Fentanyl are available in France - they definitely are in England, on prescription. Both of these are listed as stronger than hydrocodone on the pain med charts. A quick google suggests they are both used in French hospitals (in articles about studies or interesting operations, such as face transplants).

[snakeling]

Dilaudid is available in France as Sophidone LP. It's been available since 1998, though I've no idea how "widely" available it was :)

[systemaurora]

Woot! How shall I deliver your internets? ;) That was exactly what I needed to know. Thank you so much.

[snakeling]

:D Speaking the language helps. Let me know if you ever need information about France :)

[ladyjestyr]

How about Tramadol? It's a non-opiate painkiller, fairly strong, and available in France (under the brand name Ixprim). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol -- If it's for severe pain they'd want to go for an injectable preparation, I would think (although I ain't a pharmacist, nor a doctor).

However, in terms of painkiller strength, there's not much out there that's stronger than morphine. Hydromorphone might be a good alternative - from Wikipedia, "hydromorphone is somewhat faster-acting and about eight times stronger than morphine and about three times stronger than heroin on a milligram basis".

You might find the pain ladder useful to look up.

[systemaurora]

thanks for the pain ladder! But I have to nix the Tramadol. I'm getting over a bone marrow disease and boy was it useless. ugh. All it was good for even at REALLY high doses with food was making me dizzy and nauseous. XD

Dilaudid was my first thought... as soon as I make sure they have it in France, which I think someone just confirmed, I'm good to go. Thanks!

[ladyjestyr]

The response to tramadol seems to be fairly variable - it just sends me straight to sleep, but for a friend with degenerative arthritis in her hands, it's really good pain relief. Weird, huh :)

[systemaurora]

It also seems to depend on the type of pain-- for my joint and nerve pain it worked well enough, but for bone pain (my primary pain), muscle pain (my secondary pain) and sharp stabbing pain from a cyst rupturing or having your innards eaten from the inside out (my, er, vampire's pain, lol)... not so good.

[mellifluous_ink]

Some form of Vicodin, perhaps?

Depending on the type of pain, she could also try Lorazepam or another muscle relaxant, but I don't know if they're available in France.

What kind of pain is it? There are a lot of different kinds, that should be treated with different types of drug.

[ennifer_jay]

On the pain ladder, vicodin is pretty lame (not as in "not cool", but "not powerful", lol). My mom was seriously ill for a while and that's one of the pain meds they started her out on. She eventually ended up in the hospital on some IV drip I believe.

To the OP: When my mom was in the hospital, she was in some sort of serious pain med, I forget the name though. It began with a "d" and had like a "ph" sound in it, though. If somebody else sees this and knows what I'm talking about, perhaps you could help her?

[systemaurora]

curses, foiled! :D You beat me to commenting on the vicodin.

Dilaudid should work, but thanks for trying to remember! Was it Dilaudid/Hydromorphone? I don't know of anything much stronger than that. O_o

[ennifer_jay]

It probably was.

[caprinus]

stronger than IV morphine? o_O

induce a coma.