Em,

Actually it only takes about 24 hours for the fentanyl to work through the skin and into the blood stream. "Only" 25mcg is still a lot of opiate pain medication when you consider that Fentanyl is about 100x stronger then morphine. Fentanyl will cause confusion and fatigue as it directly affects the central nervous system.

Neurontin will also cause fatigue, a funny "quirk" about that drug though is that they've found that with certain dosages it actually makes users overly social and talkative and has been used recreationally as kind of a "party drug". By no means do I suggest that you crank up your mom's dosage to get her to talk more though It is rather effective on nerve pain though.

Pain management is a fine wire to walk, I did it for almost 2 years using fentanyl for most of that time. I was glad to be out of pain but sad that I couldn't be active.

Hang in there

Eric