Prescribed Tramadol for legitimate health/pain issues, but used to abuse years ago.

[Just another Mommy]

Hello everyone. I am new here, so if I am posting my question in the wrong place I apologize. I am currently 30 years old. (for another month anyway...Boo.) I have long out grown my wild days of heavy drug use, but in years passed, I did my fair share of partying and being completely irresponsible to the point that I am honestly shocked that I never ended up in jail or dead. My drug of choice was crystal meth, but I did not discriminate..... except for marijuana.... never enjoyed that. Anywho, I went through a pretty dark time when I had a significant pain pill problem. It started slowly and was only a recreational thing.... until I slipped two discs in my lower back and, with the exception of child birth, experienced the most miserable and painful thing that I felt in my life..... eventually i did whatever I had to do, meaning stealing medication from family members, etc., (never lived on the streets or anything like that) to get my hands on pain pills. Tramadol was not prescribed to me at that time, but someone close to me had a large quantity prescribed to them with unlimited refills. I am soooooo ashamed at my actions so please do not mistake my words for me advocating stealing medication from anyone. I am only giving a background story so that one can fully understand my question. Now, I have cleaned up my life and done nothing like this for several years. I am a wife and a mother to an almost three year old and drug abuse has NO place in my life. Long story short, for causes I won't go into too much detail over because I will likely curse and get on an unnecessary soap box, but I have been stricken with what Dr's believe may be Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fybromialgia because of being poisoned by my, as the dr's told me "wonderful, miracle, no possible side effects" form of birth control. This has completely changed my life and I go through "episodes" ,as I call them, of extreme extreme pain, fatigue, brain fog, etc.,etc., etc.... These episodes seem to be triggered or at least are much worse with wet weather... Rain, snow, and even humidity. I was given tramadol a few months ago to help control my pain, but I found that it didn't work at the prescribed dose and even the slightest increase made me feel as though I couldn't breathe. It is worth mentioning that I have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and I will be the first to admit that I overreact A LOT and my brain immediately goes to worse possible case scenario... So I couldn't even honestly count the number of times that I have convinced myself that I was going to die... and that tramadol incident was no exception. In hind sight, I did not take enough to be in danger of dying, but I truly believed that was the end and I flushed the rest down the toilet. Finally I will get to my point here. Today I had another extremely painful flair up due to the weather and my pcp called in more tramadol. I explained to the nurse what happened a few months ago and asked her if she thought it was just me and my crazy panicky self or if I had a legitimate reaction. She agreed that it was my anxiety and recommended I take a xanax about a half hour before taking the tramadol. My question is, has anyone else had a hard time breathing with Tramadol after having taken it many many times in the past with out issue. And I mean I took a lot at one time in the past and never noticed breathing problems. I feel that I still have a tolerance to this medication despite taking at least a 3 to 4 year break before ever touching the stuff again. I am prescribed 1 50mg tab every 4 hrs as needed and I don't have a moral issue increasing that dosage very slightly if my pain is not managed, (nothing close to the handful of pills at once I used to take), but I am afraid of the whole breathing thing. Does anyone have any input or knowledge on the subject? If so I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Hi welcome to bluelight. I am going to move your question to the correct forum.

 

[Just another Mommy]

Okay. Thank you

 

[mrsnowygrainius]

the combination of tramadol and a benzo is most likely what gave you breathing problems. opiates and benzos taken together are very deadly

 

[pbuilder]

the combination of tramadol and a benzo is most likely what gave you breathing problems. opiates and benzos taken together are very deadly

She said she was only just recommended that combination recently by a nurse, and that it happened from the tramadol alone. The nurse thinks it was due to a panic attack, and recommended she try Xanax before dosing the tramadol, which I don't think she has tried yet.

Try a low dose of Xanax before the tramadol and see how you react.

 

[Just another Mommy]

Yes, you are right about your correction to mrsnowygrainius' response to my post. I had not taken any benzos with the tramadol when I experienced difficulty breathing. I have done some research on the interaction between tramadol and xanax and this leads me to believe that responsible and reasonable doses of benzos taken with tramadol can actually lesson the risk of seizures that can occur with tramadol. In addition, I was advised by my primary care physician's nurse to take the xanax with the tramadol, so i feel confident that this is safe. As I stated in my original post, my days of recreational drug abuse are long gone and I merely and genuinely want relief from my pain... not looking for a high. I do struggle with major anxiety due to PTSD and I tend to convince myself that I am experiencing every possible dangerous side effect listed for medications, so my post was intended to get insight from anyone who may have real knowledge on the topic and to help me think rationally rather than jumping to conclusions. Thanks for pointing out and clarifying the misunderstanding that mrsnowygrainius had from my original post.