Well, that was fun, not

So Friday I picked up my repeat prescription of Butrans*, leaving it to the last minute as usual**, as I needed to change the patch on Saturday at the latest and then went shopping. I got home and unloaded the car, and haven't been out since.

Monday was finally hot enough to sit out in the sun, so I got myself nicely arranged, had my lunch, and started to read my book, at which point the chain of  thought went:

"Why am I shivering?"

"Aargh, idiot! You forgot to change the patch, you're in withdrawal. Again!"

"Where did I put the patches?"

Cue 10 minutes of dashing around the house, looking for the patches. During this time the shivering escalates to a pounding heart rate, and my pain levels spike to about an 8, which I haven't felt in ages.

"OMG, they're probably still in the car."

Dash out to the car, there they are sitting on the passenger seat.

"Oh, crap, WTF are the car keys?"

Cue 5 more minutes dashing around the house looking for the car keys, which I finally found lying on the spare bed. It's as well I found them because I was being seriously tempted to use the screwdriver lying around downstairs to smash in the passenger-side window (it's just possible I wasn't entirely thinking straight by this point).

Open car doors, grab patches, come inside, install patch, collapse on seat. Thankfully I got almost as quick relief as I did onset; it looks like I have a real knife-edge between enough butrans in my system and not enough butrans in my system, let's all panic now. The whole episode probably didn't last more than half an hour, but that was particularly unpleasant.
 

I do this regularly, though withdrawal isn't usually quite as spectacular. I'm an idiot.

 

* Slow release opiod painkiller, administered in one week patches.

** The repeat system actually semi-enforces this, they won't do a repeat until the last week of the prescription, and they want 48 hours to produce one.