Does Tramadol Help for pain?
 

I've had tramadol 50mg for pain (I have MS), and sometimes my muscles get hurting along with headaches etc....Tylenol and Ibuprofen do not work for me at all. I also have gabapentin (neurotin) for nerve pain.

Has anyone had experience with Tramadol and did it help you?

Short Experience
 

Hi Skywalker,

I have a lot of trouble with any type of pain med, very intolerant. Makes living with pain even harder since there is so little I can take for it. I was given Tramadol for the first time ever about a week or two ago. It really did help knock the pain down several levels. I was only on it for a short time and had some side effects that my body may have been able to adjust to if I were to stay on it longer. Made me dizzy, lightheaded, fuzzy head feeling, felt like I was going to faint a few times, cold sweats, some weakness, a few minor waves of nausea, but the effects on the pain were well worth the side effects. Did NOT make me drowsy. In fact, it may have slightly interferred with my sleep. I was taking 50 mg three times per day. It was given to me to get me through an acute episode of pain. Took for about 10 days. The last few days, I cut the pill in half and only took 25 mg when my pain was getting under control.

I have been given various pain meds over the years and Tramadol was the first one that I ever took with the least side effects. Personally, I found it a very beneficial med for pain relief.

I do not know how well it performs on a long term basis. I think it may lose some of its pain relief benefits over a LONG time period. Not sure.

Hope my experience is of some help to you.

How long did you take it?
 

Hi Skywalker,

How long have you been taking Tramadol? You said 50 mg..... how many per day? Sorry to hear that you had headaches and muscle hurting on it. I think it works on the brain (CNS) so your headaches may be directly related to it. Could the muscles hurting be related to your MS? I do not know anything about MS so I am sorry to be ignorant on the condition.

Would a lower dosage be inadequate for your pain? Maybe that would lessen your headaches and muscle pain.

Wishing you better days and hope you can find a med that will work well for you without too many side effects.

Hi Skywalker,

Me again. There is a great thread from October 7 on Tolerance to Tramadol. I don't know how to post links to specific threads so I hope you can locate it. Well worth the read. Dr. Smith has posted some informative links. Please check out the thread. It is under Peripheral Neuropathy.

Skywalker 1988, Please be very careful about long term use of tramadol. It works much like opiates in suppressing pain. Therefore you can become addicted.The dctors don't monitor use closely enough. It does control pain. It is prescribed for short term use but my rheumatologist prescribed for long term . Unfortunately after using for two years, I found while on vacation when I was with out my 200mg a day supply that I was suddenly thrown into some very severe withdrawal symptoms. Abdominal cramping, diarrhea and violent sneezing. Fortunately my son had a few pills left post surgery to bridge me until I got home. Man it was a nightmare and the episode sent me into a fibro myalgia flare that lasted weeks. I am working with my Dr. on a slow taper. I won't lie I liked the drug's effect. I know it is hard on the kidneys and probably the liver as well. I am a retired nurse. I know what drug dependency does to people with chronic pain. This was a true wake-up call I thought I was careful.

Hi Skywalker,

I see you've asked about tramadol with respect to your MS about a month ago on that forum.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread193812.html

With any chronic pain condition, the goal (and sometimes the best we can hope for) is not to be pain-free, but to reduce the sense of suffering, improve the quality of life, and increase function.

Tramadol, when prescribed & used appropriately, can be a very effective analgesic, but like other meds in that category, may not work (as) well for everyone.

I think you need to have a discussion with your doctor/s regarding any medications that aren't working (well enough).

talk to your doctor about chronic pain

medications for ms

Doc

I take Tramadol 100 mg ( 2 50mg tab) 4 times a day .. I started out low but had to work my way up . does great for me

Tramadol for pain in MS
 

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. :(