Tramadol Potentiation with Prednisone

[fairnymph]

Last night I had a bit of a sunburn and a headache so I decided to take some tramadol (also known as Ultram) to ease my pain. At the moment I am taking prednisone (a corticosteroid, non-recreactional on its own, for the most part at least) for an allergic reaction. Prednisone and corticosteroids often make people more sensitive to other drugs taken concurrently.
I have natural high tolerance to opiates/opiods (having taken codeine for years for pain) and I've shot an almost full bag of heroin with no built up tolerance and been just fine...
I took 150 mg tramadol on a full stomach along with 20 mg of prednisone. I had taken 20 mg of prednisone earlier that morning (8 hours before) as well as a similar dose for the previous 5 days -- so there is definitely a good deal of prednisone in my system.
I didn't feel much from the 150 mg (felt like 15 mg codeine) after 2 hours so I decided to take another 50 mg. About half an hour later it begins to really kick in...I was driving to visit a friend at 24 hour fitness and work out and boy was I fucked up.
I arrive and get on the ellipse machine, but after 10 min I am so nauseous and my head feels like totally opiate-overwhelmed, I am so high it is unpleasant. I have taken a gram of codeine over 8 hours and not felt this fucked up...the closest I can compare the feeling was to the time I shot heroin, it was VERY close in how fucked up I was, of course minus the nice rush. There was a nice body high and warmth though for quite a few hours....
Anyways, I continued to feel substantially nauseous and have a headache, though a mountain dew settled me down a bit and I didn't vomit. 6 hours later (after taking the extra 50 mg) I am still faded as fuck...8 hours later I am coming down a bit but very high nonetheless.
Today, almost 16 hours later I am *STILL* feeling some effects, as well as I have a major headache/hangover feel, and a yucky semi-nauseous feeling in my stomach.
Anyways, my point? Prednisone (and presumably other corticosteroids) vastly potentiate the effects of tramadol, and I'm guessing it would do the same for true opiates. This can be used to help those with high tolerances, to cheapen your dose, etc...but please be careful!

 

[Technical User]

fairnymph - very interesting, I have been on prednisone for the past 4 days and I have noticed and increased feeling from opiates too!
Yesterday, I shot a bag of dope followed by 15ml of tusionex penkinetic about 2/2 1/2 hours later and I was completely floored an hour after that. This effect lasted most of the night, needing only to do a half a bag around 3:30 in the morning(I was actually half scared to do a whole one). I thought it was quite strange but this has become a new expirement to me now. I was going to get off the prednisone but hell I think I'll give it another week or so and see what happens.
Keep us updated!
--

 

[Jabberwocky]

Wowsers. and your pupils looked dialated but not as much as they usuall do. I couldnt tell you were fucked up i just thought you were nausiated.
-phil-
watch out for shotting while on prednison it slows down the healing time, so dont fuck up

 

[day_for_night]

prednisone is definately not something you want to take unless you have to. it is one horrible drug. if people want to lower their tolerance, i'd suggest k, or dxm.

 

[quale]

Why so horrible? I have been on it for three weeks (alergic reaction) and noticed no significant side effects except improved sleep cycle and more energy (I am sure long term the muscle degeneration/immuno suppresant would be bad but to take it with opiates doesn't sound that extra bad).
I can't comment about its effects with opiates because I did not use opiates during this time period but I thought I would add it seemed to have very little effect on meth and probably not too much on e (thought you can never tell given how variable the rolls are).

 

[AbraMontague]

Personally, I would just take more of <your-favorite-opiate-here>. I guess that very occaisonal use wouldn't be too harmful but regular use of corticosteroids is guaranteed to cause some horrendous side effects (much worse than any illegal drugs). Also, there isn't much literature on how the two drugs interact, so there could be a huge variance in the amount of each drug required for different people.

 

[NoriegA]

Thats some crazy shit. It's amazing what combinations of different lower end recreational drugs can really get a person twisted...
BRING BACK THE FLAG!!!
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[fairnymph]

quale said:

I would add [prednisone] seemed to have very little effect on meth and probably not too much on e
I completely agree.
Btw, prednisone also combines synergistically with ketamine -- see my thread here.
[ 20 June 2002: Message edited by: fairnymph ]

 

[AbraMontague]

"Elevated levels of corticosteroid hormones are associated with depressive illness (Murphy 1991a), and recent work in rodents has demonstrated a myriad of interactions between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the serotonergic system (Chaoulo 1993), including findings that corticosteroids may attenuate 5-HT1A receptor function (Joels et al. 1991;Haleem 1992)."
Prednisone doesn't inhibit the metabolism of tramadol or ketamine, so that isn't the reason why one potentiates the other. It seems to me that the HPA axis is central to the interactions, but how exactly this works probably isn't known. But also keep in mind that corticosteroids can produce psychological effects when taken by themselves (ranging from depression, anxiety to psychosis in some long term users).

 

[day_for_night]

Why so horrible?
here is why:
side effects due to prednisone use:
Sodium retention, fluid retention, congestive heart failure in susceptible patients, potassium loss, hypokalemic alkalosis, and hypertension.
Peptic ulcer with possible perforation and hemorrhage; pancreatitis; abdominal distention; ulcerative esophagitis; Increases in alanine transaminase (ALT, SGPT), aspartate transaminase (AST, SGOT) and alkaline phosphatase have been observed following corticosteroid treatment.
Impaired wound healing, thin fragile skin, petechiae and ecchymoses, facial erythema, increased sweating, and may suppress reactions to skin tests.
Negative nitrogen balance due to protein catabolism. Increased intracranial pressure with papilledema (pseudo-tumor cerebri) usually after treatment, convulsions, vertigo, and headache.
Menstrual irregularities; development of Cushingoid state; secondary adrenocortical and pituitary unresponsiveness, particularly in times of stress, as in trauma, surgery or illness; suppression of growth of children; decreased carbohydrate tolerance; manifestations of latent diabetes mellitus; increased requirements for insulin or oral hypoglycemic agents in diabetics.
Posterior subcapsular cataracts, increased intraocular pressure, glaucoma, and exophthalmos.
Urticaria and other allergic, anaphylactic or hypersensitivity reactions