I am a user of the pump and take just a little less than 6 mg a day.  I have not experienced any memory loss, however I believe that Cort is right in that he has these two options.  Memory loss or increased pain.  I do not believe that they use anything else in these pumps except for morphine and a drug called baclafin (spelled wrong i am sure)  There was a time that the doctors were trying lots of things in them until they realized that they were getting complications from a mass that would form at the tip of the catheter and could be very dangerous.  They are now staying with the drugs that were approved for the device, and staying with relatively weak morphine.  My doctor will not use anything over 30, as most of the masses have occured in devices that had something other than what was FDA approved and had morphine that was very concentrated......over 30.

God bless you as it sounds like you are someones guardian angle!

Pattyh

I am a user of the pump and take just a little less than 6 mg a day.  I have not experienced any memory loss, however I believe that Cort is right in that he has these two options.  Memory loss or increased pain.  I do not believe that they use anything else in these pumps except for morphine and a drug called baclafin (spelled wrong i am sure)  There was a time that the doctors were trying lots of things in them until they realized that they were getting complications from a mass that would form at the tip of the catheter and could be very dangerous.  They are now staying with the drugs that were approved for the device, and staying with relatively weak morphine.  My doctor will not use anything over 30, as most of the masses have occured in devices that had something other than what was FDA approved and had morphine that was very concentrated......over 30.

God bless you as it sounds like you are someones guardian angle!

Pattyh

omg! yes yes yes. wow its sad but true. I have had the pump in now for almost 3 years and have had constant unbearible all over pain since age 17 years old. I am only 38 yrs old and have experienced alot of forgetfullness and other mental changes. it does also seem as though my personality changes alot more drastically my mood etc. but thats always been an issue so thats probably from the pain levels always flectuating ya know.I also wish i could go back to pills just for the only reason that the pump is a nusance but i wouldnt trade the relief factor at all as the pills were no where near the constant flow of relief. having to wait for a small distraction to the pain from the pills to kick in would sometimes couse me to get very violent and destructive often very close to multiple suicide attempts.

             Are you really on 8mg a day is that your rate per hour I thought that would be higher then maximum since the dosage/mg strength is way different from the pill form of morphine or dilaudid. also are you on morphine or dilaudid? just wondering couse I get extreme hot flashs and wondered if that was happening to you I had my dr. lower the mg to see if that would help with sweating side affect.thanks for the talk,rhonda