^ Yeah, to those prone to seizures they should stay the fuck away from tramadol. It does suck in that regard. Don't get me wrong, I don't think tramadol is a great drug by any means, I just think it's been somewhat underrated on BL over the years because people who haven't even tried it would preach on about how useless it was because they read someone else's opinion. Of course there were some knowledgeable BLers/mods who gave tramadol a chance and hated it, but most of those people had a very high opiate tolerance. If you're shooting massive amount of H every day or if it takes you 200mg of oxy to get high, then tramadol IS useless.
As to whether or not tramadol is actually an opioid, it depends on your definition. It does have a binding affinity to opiate receptors, so I would consider it a synthetic drug with opioid properties (along with weak SSRI/SNRI properties). The U.S. government claims tramadol is "non-narcotic" just because it is legal and unscheduled.