The Importance of Treatment for Breakthrough Pain
Even if your around-the-clock opioid medicine controls your persistent pain most of the time, you may still experience sudden flares of moderate-to-severe breakthrough pain. Breakthrough pain can strike suddenly and without warning in many cases. The pain can become severe in minutes.
To get the most effective treatment possible, it's important for you to help your pain management team understand the breakthrough pain you experience. Click on the following links to learn more:
Personal Pain Assessment: identifying breakthrough pain in patients with cancer
Because pain is often difficult to describe and evaluate, we have developed a Personal Pain Assessment tool. By answering questions about the persistent and breakthrough pain you experience, you and your pain management team can decide the best way to manage it.
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Your role on the pain management team
The task of managing your pain is not just your doctor's. It should be a group effort, involving you, your doctor, other healthcare providers, and your caregiver, if you have one. Here are some ways you and your doctor can work together:
- Discuss expectations. You need to know what is reasonable to expect in terms of pain relief and side effects. Your doctor needs to know that you will use your pain medicine appropriately
- Discuss an opioid agreement. Your doctor may ask you to enter an agreement to maintain clear and open communication about your medicine, how you are responding to it, and how you promise to use it
- Discuss monitoring your pain medicines. Your doctor may want to measure the levels of medicine in your system to make sure you are following your opioid treatment plan
- Store your pain medicine properly. Opioids may be fatal in the hands of children, and they may be a target for people attempting to take or sell the drug illegally. It is necessary for you to have a safe and secure place to keep them so that no one but you or your caregiver can gain access to them
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Preparing for your doctor visit
One way to help manage your breakthrough pain with your doctor is to be prepared for your appointments. Preparing helps promote clear and organized communication with your doctor.
Dr. Liza Leal discusses tips for promoting clear and organized communication with your doctor
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To best prepare for your upcoming doctor visit, Dr. Liza Leal, a board-certified pain management specialist, recommends that you:
- "Talk the talk". Understanding different terms for cancer pain and using them when talking with your doctor may help your doctor get a better idea of what you experience and how to personalize your treatment. Click here for helpful information about describing breakthrough pain
- Keep a pain journal. It may be very beneficial to your doctor if you put into writing when your pain gets better or worse, when you experience a breakthrough pain flare, and the effect of the medicines you are taking. Detailed descriptions can help your doctor customize your medication to treat your pain. Click here to download your own Daily Pain Journal
- Be organized during your doctor visit. Before you arrive for your appointment, make a list of questions to ask your doctor and bring these with you. You should also bring your pain journal. You may want to take notes during your visit, or bring a friend or family member to listen, remember, and help organize the information shared during your visit
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FENTORA is used to treat breakthrough pain in adult patients with cancer (18 years of age and older) who are regularly using other opioid pain medicines around-the-clock for their constant cancer pain.
Click here for more information about FENTORA.
IMPORTANT:
- DO NOT USE FENTORA unless you are regularly using other opioid pain medicines around-the-clock for your constant cancer pain and your body is used to these medicines.
- Keep FENTORA in a safe place away from children. Accidental use by a child is a medical emergency and can result in death. If a child accidentally takes FENTORA, get emergency help right away.
Read the Medication Guide that comes with FENTORA before you start taking it and each time you get a new prescription. There may be new information. This Medication Guide does not take the place of talking to your doctor about your medical condition or your treatment. Share this important information with members of your household.
The most important information you should know about FENTORA is:
- FENTORA can cause life-threatening breathing problems which can lead to death:
- If you are not regularly using other opioid pain medicines around-the-clock for your constant cancer pain and your body is not used to these medicines. This means that you are not opioid tolerant
- If you do not use it exactly as prescribed by your doctor
- Your doctor will prescribe a starting dose of FENTORA that is different than other fentanyl containing medicines you may have been taking. Do not substitute FENTORA for other fentanyl medicines, including Actiq®, without talking with your doctor.