How do Fentanyl patches work?

Question

Fentanyl doesn’t readily absorb through unbroken skin, so how do Fentanyl patches work?

Edit: do*

In: 1

Answer 1

Fentanyl *does* very readily penetrate the skin. It is highly lipophillic (“lipid loving”) which means it can easily penetrate any part of the body made of cells, like skin, alveoli, the nose, the inside of the cheeks (buccal), under the tongue (sublingual).

In fact, a cop who was just checking through a stash of expected fentanyl almost OD’d within seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd76HxqCPf0