Grapfruit reduced Tramadols effect

[alpha_76]

Ok I have reading a lot here about if grapefruit enhances tramadol or not and thought I would share my experiance.
I take tramadol once a week to chill to on a Sunday. Dosage of 1-200mg I start with 100mg than take 50 around 2 hours later and then the final 50 two hours after that. This is normally a nice relaxing buzz for me.
This weekend I drank about 400ml of grapefruit juice about half an hour before to see if it potentiated it. I read it decreases the enzyme that motabilises tramadol to the inactive motabilite and hence increases the active one. This was not my experiance. I ended up taking 300mg and still had a lesser experiance than I would normally get on 200. I also had a cup of greentea but didn't read anywhere that it affects tramadol.

Has any one else found grapefruit juice reduced tramadols effect or am I just an odd ball?

 

[mareseatoats]

You're not an odd ball, but tramadol is.

The grapefruit juice may have affected you differently than what is documented about it. Something that may work for one may not always work for another.

 

[alpha_76]

Yeah, I was quite disappointed, not least because I wasted 6 tablets on it But at least I know now. I also experimented with spacing the doses out but I don't find it makes much difference but I do find taking small dose for my last one softens the come down.

I'm also finding that even only using Tramadol once a week my tolerance is still building up. I used to only need 100mg and beer I want to find out how often I can get aware with using it with building up tolerance.

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

If I understand the grapefruit juice potentiating technique correctly it is supposed to inhibit metabolism by the liver of opiates and other chems. this causes more molecules to float around and continue to be absorbed into the bloodstream unaltered by the liver.
the problem you are having with tramadol is that it is a prodrug. this means it must be converted to its active metabolite o-desmethyltramadol via the liver to have psychoactive effects.
when you drank the juice and took the tramadol you were actually inhibiting the metabolism of some of the tramadol into o-desmethyltramadol in your liver. this phenomenon is also seen with codeine. codeine is not purely a prodrug but most of its psychoactive effects are due to its metabolism into morphine.

again this is just my basic understanding

 

[T. Calderone]

You're not an odd ball, but tramadol is.

I agree and tramadol's sort of hit or miss for me. Sometimes I would take it and sort of feel something like a buzz trying to happen but mostly not. But I get weird side effects from it. Could be tolerance building for OP too.