How long does it take for Morphine (MST) to 'kick in'?

So, as the illness progresses, you're going to need pain relief...

I'll do a post on "the lies" (or half-truths) you get told along the way. The Doctor's paranoia at scaring people and 'causing distress' means they don't tell you the truth. We were told that "some people don't experience any pain with Pancreatic Cancer". Untrue. Most do. And it's mostly VERY bad pain too.

So you'll need morphine... or oxycodone... or tramadol... or even fentanyl...

But we had Morphine so that's what this quick article will be about.

Basically, you have 2 types of morphine - Quick Release and Slow Release.

It's all the same stuff - just packaged differently so it gets to your nervous system in different times and, for us, also had different drowsyness effects.

Offical info/link to answer: How long does it take for morpine to work?

Acute/Fast Acting Morphine

This is "Oramorph". You get a syringe with it. You usually take 2.5ml (which equals 5mg of actual Morphine) or 5ml (10mg morphine).

You take it orally (i.e. drink it). And it it takes about 20-30mins for it to reach your nervous system.

It's fast acting and lasts about 2-3 hours.

However, we found that it also made Alison very drowsy and sleepy. And zonked her out. So, once you need 4-5 of these (2.5ml) in a 24 hour period, then they will start talking about having slow release morphine which is much better as it doesn't all hit the body at one time and didn't make Alison as drowsy.

Slow Release Morphine

As above, this was much better as it had the pain relieving effect but without as much intense drowsyness.

It takes about 1.5hours (90mins) to reach your nervous system. So, over time, you end up doing a shuffle upwards. i.e. The slow release works for a while and then you'll start getting pain again. So, you use Oramorph to contain that additional pain. Once you are using 4-5 shots of Oramorph in a 24 hour window, you up the Slow Release Morphine by 5mg.

You can increase the slow release in stages. So, for example, we were doing 1 pill at 8am and 1 pill at 8pm. But, after a while, Alison was waking up at 7am needing the toilet and was in too much pain. So, we delayed the pills to 9.30pm and 9.30am.... which meant, by 7am, there was just a bit more morphine in her system.

Then, over time, we gave her more oramorph.

Then, once we hit 4-5 oramorph's per 24 hours, we upped the PM by 5mg

And, eventually, we then needed to up the AM pill by 5mg too.

And the cycle repeats.

UPDATE 21st December 2022: We are at 15mg AM and 15mg PM... we're currently on 2-3 additional Oramorphs. So, we're anticipating having to up the PM dose to 20mg soon.

UPDATE 28th December 2022 (I think): We are at 20mg morning and 20mg evening

UPDATE 3rd Feb 2023: We have been at 20mg morning and 25mg evening for about 4 weeks