How Long Does Fentanyl Stay in Your System?

There is and has been a national crisis of opioid abuse in our country. Opioids are prescribed painkillers, synthetic opioids, and illegal drugs such as Codeine, Heroin, Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone, Methadone, Morphine, and Oxycodone. Some of these are prescribed daily for pain. Some patients, such as those suffering from severe cancer pain, are prescribed more than one. One prescription may be a long-acting pain medication, and another may be a short-acting pain pill if there is some breakthrough pain that isn’t affected by the current medication.

Some of these short-acting medications include fentanyl patches or lozenges. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH), Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. It is a prescription drug that is also made and used illegally. Like morphine, it is a medicine typically used to treat patients with severe pain, especially after surgery. It is also sometimes used to treat patients with chronic pain who are physically tolerant to other opioids. Tolerance occurs when you need a higher and/or more frequent drug to get the desired effects.

Fentanyl is Leading to Many Overdoses

Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, are now the most common drugs involved in drug overdose deaths in the United States. In 2017, 59.8 percent of opioid-related deaths involved fentanyl, compared to 14.3 percent in 2010.

Doctors and pharmacists must be specially trained when prescribing fentanyl to a patient who is already on some other pain medication to avoid an accidental overdose. They need to know just how long fentanyl stays in your system. Fentanyl can leave your system from 11 to 22 hours, but several factors impact how long fentanyl remains in your system, including:

• Amount used – the more you take, the more time it takes to exit your system.
• How frequently it is used – fentanyl can build up in someone’s system; the longer it’s taken, therefore, the longer to exit.
• Method of use – The way the drug is administered affects how long it stays in the system – Injection leaves the body quicker than if one was to snort it.
• Age – Younger people may have more tolerance than older people, which may only need a little to be affected.
• Health – Those with healthy organs may pass the drug more quickly than those with terrible health.

Fentanyl Cannot Be Quickly Flushed from Your System.

Fentanyl shows up in the body’s different fluids, such as urine, blood, saliva, and sweat, and it can also be detected through your hair. It is broken down through the liver before leaving the body through urine. There is no way to flush the drug out quicker since it needs to pass through the liver. But if you feel you want fentanyl out of your system as you think you’ve taken too many opiates and may overdose, you need to get ahold of naloxone. While it does not take the drug out of your system, it does block the opiate receptors, which makes the user go into precipitated withdrawals, but it is better than an overdose.

If you or a loved one has a fentanyl abuse problem and are scared to stop because of the thought of withdrawal symptoms, we at Allure Detox can help. When it comes to Allure Detox, we provide much more than the bare minimum.  Of course, we help clients stop using safely – that’s just a given.  Almost as important as that, though, is that we offer clients the foundation for a lifetime of relief and recovery.

Allure Detox is Here to Help

That’s the Allure Detox promise: patients leave our care with more than good health at their disposal. Our focus is on minimizing your withdrawal symptoms to a comfortable level while beginning the comprehensive treatment process that will keep you sober.

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