I was put on Tramadol back somewhere around 2004 and I was on it up until somewhere around the end of 2012. I did great on it for many years as I was on it for neurological pain from MS. I was dx'd with MS in 1997 at the age of 27 after having symptoms over the years from foot drop as a young teen in high school to undiagnosed optic neuritis in my left eye when I was 18 to undiagnosed trigeminal neuralgia when I was 19 and on and on up until I was diagnosed with MS finally in 97 due to having another episode of optic neuritis in my left eye, numbness in my left arm and my left leg. Anyway, back to the topic at hand, being the tramadol. I think, for minor neurological pain it works great to a point. I was able to stay on it for so long because I used exercise for many years as a form of pain management. I used to ride mountain bikes for recreational purposes and it served me well to use it as a form of pain management so that I didn't have to go to using anything else or increase my dosage. I was on 50 mg 2 to 3x a day. Once I needed to go up more than that my neurologist referred me to a pain management specialist who in turn disgussed my options and as I was terrified of becoming addicted to pain killers we decided together to go with the pain pump which basically takes it out of my hands and into the hands of the Dr's. I finally had my pain pump put in on the 23rd of Dec. 2013 and just recently had my first dose adjustment which I was originally started at only 1 mg of morphine and they did a 20% increase which brought me to 1.2 mg. I have not yet reached my optimal dosage yet but I am only able to go up a little at a time so it is going to take more increases to get me to that optimal dosage. I am not sure what dosage you are on yet for the pain that you are having but I can tell you that for the most part tramadol worked great for me and for others that have had to take it for pain as well. I like the fact that it never gave me the side effects that other pain medications gave me and I was able to stay productive while taking it, where as with other medications like percocet I was knocked out after only 1 pill. As a synthetic opiate it is less addictive than other opiates, however don't let that fool you, because it can be addictive to some people depending on how easily they are able to become addicted to pain medications. As for me I didn't have any problems at the described dosages. I hope this helps you. Good luck and God bless! BTW, as for headaches, I was never able to get much relief from headaches from the Tramadol.