I feel over time, my bodily pharmacokinetics have changed to where now I must metabolize a lot into “M1.”
My first time trying tramadol fresh into opiates, in withdrawal so tried a 200mg. Felt absolutely nothing from it.
Years and years later, lots of opiates under my bent, I’m in major withdrawal from suboxone and try 100mg. Within an hour I’m not only completely out of withdrawal but feeling good. To give perspective, about a week up until I took that 100mg I was eating Kratom and lope like it was going outta style. ~50g kratom leaf, plus lots of extracts on top of that, and 20-40mg lope a day too. 100mg tramadol was able to do more than ALL of that.
Two guesses as to why...
1) Chronic opiate use changes the way we metabolize them. This is shown with morphine where there is a marked increase in BA between naive and chronic users, chronic users having a much higher BA than naive users.
2) Suboxone withdrawal is a unique beast. It is said that suboxone does have some effects on serotonin, hence its anti depressant action. Maybe there’s slight SSRI/SNRI action with buprenorphine too that only tramadol was able to quell?
Either way ever since then tramadol is very potent to me now. In fact I can take 15-25mg while on suboxone and feel it, there’s almost a synergy.
-GC