so pharmacists want to have a patient that comes to me that tells me about this particular medication and saying that it’s not working i have to ask him a few questions. i want to find out if they are applying the patch in the right way. sometimes patients don't understand that they have to apply a patch to a certain area of the body. they also may not understand that one of the things that they need to do is take off the patch that they shouldn't leave the other patch on and then put on another one. so i tend to ask a lot of questions about how you are using this patch. i will also ask them if they are keeping a diary about how their pain has been since they started it. now my skin is going to be different than your skin. so patches the drug is actually absorbed through the skin and gives the effect. so if your skin might be a little more thicker than mine it might take longer for that drug to pass. in this case i also want to ask the patient if he has made the physician fully aware of how he is using the patch and maybe we need to switch him to a different company. because they all make different platforms of how the drug is absorbed into the skin so he might need a different type of patch. also maybe we need to increase the strength of the patch and see how he does on that. so it's a step wise approach and individualized therapy. the physician probably wants to try this because at some point because of the past medication he was on he may have developed a tolerance to that medication and it wasn't really treating his pain. so the doctor is probably looking at other options instead to make it a little more easier for the patient.
my husband switched to fentanyl patches after taking oxycontin for two years. when can he expect relief from his pain?