Trying to get off opiates. Will tramadol hurt progress? Help with wd?

[Crack'r]

My question is if tramadol will make withdrawals worse when trying to completely stop opiates? Can it possibly help with withdrawals? What I'm dealing with is below if anyone is interested.

I am trying to get off high dose oxycodone and dilaudid that I've been on for almost 10 years. I have been on it for pain but started defeating ER for IR effects and ROA to control pain as tolerance out paced Dr willingness to increase dosage.

I'm tired of constantly waiting to take the next dose and the way it makes me act. So I have tapered from around 400 mg oxycodone a day and tried to completely stop but couldn't handle some of the pain I still experience. So I've been taking 2-3 4mg dilaudid a day which is enough to keep rest of withdrawals away and knock out enough pain that it's tolerable. Going to try to taper this out to nothing even though it's much, much less than what I was on. It's still enough to keep my body somewhat dependant where I start to hurt pretty bad if I wait too long.

I found an old script of tramadol that didn't help at the time. My stomach was hurting pretty bad and took a 50mg tramadol and it seemed to knock out my stomach pain pretty good. But I don't want to take it if I will be undoing all the tapering I've done so far? If it will help with pain I will take it and stop dilaudid and get withdrawals over so I can start the healing process. But if tramadol is going to make opiate tolerance skyrocket then I never want to take it again.

Any input would be great!

I also got some Kratom and I haven't felt anything. Except made my junk not work and miss out on good sex. Maybe in the middle of being really sick it could help?

 

[Kittycat5]

I dont think tramadol with skyrocket you tolerance but it may just prolong the WD a bit. It also has SNRI action, like some antidepressants and taking it long enough could mean a withdrawal type syndrome from that too. Whats your taper plan with the hydromorphone?

 

[Crack'r]

Not exactly what I wanted to hear but I can probably deal with that.

If it weren't for my stomach pain I would probably just stop the hydromorphone and deal with any WD. It's the pain that always gets me. But I'm starting to think the pain is just a symptom of WD for me that is particularly bad, or it is at least aggravating some other issue.

I took yesterday's evening 4 mg early around 4 and it did nothing. Which is why I ended taking the tramadol which did seem to knock out the pain. By 6 this morning I was feeling WD pretty good already and think I had been feeling it during the night but took benadryl and just made myself go back to sleep. If that is the case I don't think the tram did very much to appease my body.

I was taking 7-9 dilaudid a day 2 weeks ago when I stopped. I had decent WD but wasn't pure hell like last time I tried to stop. I figured it had to be easier to stop than taking 400mg plugged of oxycodone a day. And I think even that was just really keeping WD away and my tolerance was much higher. 8 mg a day of hydromorphone is going to be hard to taper. It's so low and short acting that's it's just not easy to deal with. And if you have anything in your bowels it's like the food absorbs most of it and you don't get enough to do anything which I think is what happened with the 4 mg yesterday afternoon. I will just slowly drop it down like 1 mg at a time and see if a long slow taper can make my stomach not hurt. But if tramadol will work for pain I will probably just stop the dilaudid and get it completely out of my system, use the tram for any pain, and try to start getting completely over opiates.

I know pain doesn't help, but I don't think the opiates were helping my brain chemistry at all and were causing me to snap at people and have a short fuse and little tolerance for things. Not a good combo when you have a young child that is playing and exploring her world aka a baby tornado. I could tolerate most of it cause she's a cute baby but occasionally something would happen that would cause me to flip out and I would try to get away so she didn't see it but I watch her all day for 3-4 days a week and not always possible. When going thru WD and even weeks after it is much more pronounced and seems almost like what being bipolar would be like. Crazy manic highs where I'm focused on something and usually getting pissed off to lows where I'm sad and crying over a dog food commercial. Freaking weird but I think it's just my brain chemistry being out of whack and missing the opiates. Hopefully with enough time that will go away and I can get back to the old happy go lucky me. Even when I was diagnosed with a rare screwed up disease at 23 I was very optimistic and still happy and just looked at it as something I had to deal with and it could always be worse and there was no reason to worry until I was given really bad news. Even though it was bad I was able to convince myself it could be worse and wasn't that bad yet. Anyways, I don't like what I've become while taking the pills and want to try to get back to some type of normal, whatever that is. I don't know if I will ever be the same but I want to try.

Sorry for rambling. I don't have many people to talk to and this takes the place of that even though I know most people aren't going to read something so long. Thanks!

 

[Keif' Richards]

I dont think tramadol with skyrocket you tolerance but it may just prolong the WD a bit. It also has SNRI action, like some antidepressants and taking it long enough could mean a withdrawal type syndrome from that too. Whats your taper plan with the hydromorphone?

This. Tramadol is an Opioid, so just be aware that using it while going through a taper or withdrawal could possibly set you back.