Codeine question?

[bob78]

Swim takes morphine in 20mg tablet form but prefers Codeine instead.
He used to take codeine phosphate but it got changed to morphine a couple of months ago. Swim thought that the morphine would be better but after taking some of his old codeine tablets swim thinks the codeine gives better pain relief as well as giving a better buzz.
Maybe it's the poor bioavailability of taking morphine orally?
Swim would like to know the difference between Dyhydrocodeine and Codeine Phosphate before asking the G.P for advice.

[ningbar]

swim has been prescribed codeine for a real medical condition for several years

at one point he thought it would be fun to get "stronger" opiates on prescription and also not to have to do CWE all the time

alas he found both dihydrocodeine and morphine to be far less effective, even in very large ammounts

i think its very much down to individual metabolisms, but swim went back to the codeine through his own choice and has learnt to enjoy what he has instead of trying to get stronger meds

cheers
Ningbar

[Forthesevenlakes]

Dihydrocodeine is simply about twice the strength of codeine, and thats the only difference SWIM can really think of.

Codeine is very bioavailable, much more so than morphine. Morphine orally might only be about 10% bioavailable, max. So for a 30 mg pill SWIY would only get 3 mg of that to his brain. This could be why SWIY finds codeine more effective!

[Nature Boy]

^^^

True that.

Although morphine is a more powerful opiate than codeine, orally it doesn't have a very strong effect. It seems to be designed for IV use.

[bob78]

Cheers guys, swim thinks he will stay on his slow release morphine 30mg MST as it does help, but will ask his Doctor if he can go back on codeine phosphate 60mg for breakthrough pain instead of quick release morphine 20mg Sevredol. Or do you think swim should ask to try Dyhydrocodeine instead?
It's strange but a few months ago if you told swim he would be turning down morphine in favour of codeine swim would of not of believed it.

[Forthesevenlakes]

Dihydrocodeine should be very similar to codeine, just twice the strength. However, SWIM's not sure the bioavailability is as good as regular codeine. For whatever reason, codeine is very bioavailable orally. The 60 mg codeine phosphate may not be a bad idea. It would absorb better than the morphine Sevredol, for sure. SWIM doesnt hear of DHC being prescribed too often for breakthrough pain, maybe discuss with SWIY's doctor if he thinks itd be a better option.

[mickenator]

If it's mainly for relieving pain then swim prefers there dihydrocodeine and has tried others but eventually came back to these. Serious pain sucks !!! Also the buzz 'aint bad either, but haven't tried doing cwe yet.