'Safer' Opioid Is Even More Addictive Than The Others

[Julieanne]

Bryan Hubbard
May 28 2019

The US's Drug Enforcement Administration has rated Tramadol as being less addictive than other opioids, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, and it hasn't been as tightly regulated.
But doctors from the Mayo Clinic have discovered that it's far from being safer. In a follow-up of nearly 360,000 patients prescribed an opioid to ease pain after surgery, the doctors found that suspicious repeat prescribing, long after the pain had gone, was most common among those given Tramadol.

Read more: https://www.wddty.com/news/2019/05/s...=1559216266703

[Islander]

This was the rationale my PCP used to prescribe tramadol for my chronic pain. He repeated the belief mentioned in the article that it was the least addictive of the family of opioids. I'll never know, because the side effects were so unpleasant that I never took the second one. It made me so sleepy that I had to lie down, and so nauseated that I skipped the evening meal entirely.

[Julieanne]

I had a similar experience. I was given Tramadol a few years ago for extreme pain - I think it was hip bursitis - and the effect lasted about 14 hours. I do remember feeling quite odd, and like you, I didn't take it again. Oxycodone after hip surgery relieved the pain without side effects. I reduced the dose as soon as possible, then stopped it altogether soon after I left hospital.