Lidocaine patches are ridiculously expensive and yet ridiculously easy to make – here’s how.
1) Get your doctor to prescribe 100 gm lidocaine HCl powder – you can get it from a compounding pharmacy though many pharmacies can order it in. (Note: – DO NOT get not lidocaine base which has zero solubility). One teaspoon of powder lidocaine HCl is 2.4 gms.
2)To make a 5% lidocaine mix:
Take 1 packet Knox gelatin
2/3 cup water = 160 ml
3 1/3 (3.333) teaspoons lidocaine HCl powder = 8 gms
3) Heat up water to boil
4) Put in whole packet Knox gelatin and lidocaine powder
5) Put tinfoil flat out in some sort of cooking pan.
6) pour gelatin mix over tinfoil and it form a thin layer – allow to cool off – may needs some time to get dry enough to be tacky.
7) When tacky, will self-stick. – Size the patch by cut the tinfoil to pain area you wish to cover and you are good to go. If used overnight, might want to tape it down some.
Comment – 5% lidocaine is what the commercial Xyloderm patches are. 10% patches might be better (double the lidocaine dose to 6 2/3 teaspoons). Theoretically you can go up to 60% with lidocaine but lidocaine is acidic and that might cause some irritation.(Though one might add some baking soda but if too much baking soda becomes the inert lidocaine base.
NOTE – By mouth, lidocaine is a poison and your doctor might want you to sign a waver to the effect you understand that and will not take by mouth. Having said that, most pill-bottles full of meds could be toxic if taken all, in quantity. Topically however, they do not amount to anything – no blood levels.
If you have tried it and found it helpful – would like to hear about it!
has anyone tried this? how did they work?
I have a patient who has been field testing it for me (he now buys his own containers of lidocaine powder) and came up with some results:
1) It can give from 20-80% relief depending on the site – they last about 8 hours
2) thicker tinfoil works better
3) 10% lidocaine works some better that 5%
4) pouring it in square pans means you cut off some – he puts tinfoil in big round thing – he has some extra big round muffin tins that he uses – round patches don’t need trimming.
5) Helpful to use a little tape to hold in place some.
When it doesn’t work it suggests something is really wrong – I had a pregnant lady with left lower abdominal pain that was painful but non- descrip – patches didn’t help and I located an inguinal hernia bulge that was the cause…
Addendum – If the patches dry out too much, simply heat with a blow drier and it will melt some and maybe even stick better…
the tinfoil can make noise at night but those space age tinfoil like blankets (cheap at a dollar-like store) work without noise and can be reused…
-from admin