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Is this somehow different fentanyl for the stuff that in the UK gets handed out in litre bottles to old ladies with dodgy hips?

Because the whole point of fentanyl is the massive therapeutic window and difficulty of overdosing.




You must be thinking of something else. Pure fentanyl has a lethal dosage in the microgram range.


Both things can be true, and are in the case of fentanyl. The lethal dose is small in absolute terms, perhaps as low as 2mg[0]. The therapeutic window is large in that doses around 50mcg[1] are useful for pain relief in adult patients. That's 1/40 the potentially lethal dose.

[0] https://www.dea.gov/resources/facts-about-fentanyl

[1] https://www.drugs.com/dosage/fentanyl.html


Are you thinking of Oramorph? I know a bunch of older ladies who use it because they have nerve pain, it's derivative of poppies/opium so it's morphine rather than fentanyl.


No, definitely Fentanyl. Oramorph is pretty tightly regulated.


Fentanyl is definitely as, if not more, restricted in the UK than morphine (oramorph being a brand name for liquid morphine).




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