Tramadol life

hello fellow tramadol sufferers,

I am here talking to you good people not because I am seeking help to get off tramadol but because after reading some of your stories I wanted to possibly help by sharing my 15 yr experience with tramadol. I hope I have room. There could potentially be a part 2.

Today I am properly medicated with 2 anti seizure medications that treat my chronic nerve pain & The bi-polar condition I was left with after quitting tramadol. I am doing good. these meds together stopped the horrible horrible hell I was stuck in. I can't remember life without constant severe anxiety & tremors. that is gone now with these meds (lamotrigine & gabapentin) but I had continued the trazadone for sleep so my wonderful dr at Amen clinics who did brain scans & in depth look at history & symptoms & knew right away what to prescribe, switched me to just a smidge of seroquel (25 mg) for sleep. I have never felt so good or been this well balanced with mental clarity in my whole adult life.

So why did I stumble onto this site and read your stories this morning? Maybe God inspired so that I could help, but in my own mind it was because I woke up with a headache for the 3rd time this wk. sinus suspected. dont have any psuedophedrine in the house. imitrex works but I don't take that unless it's a bad migraine. which I rarely get now that I have the right meds.

so here I was with my pill box in my lap considering a tramadol even tho I know what a nightmare it was for a yr & a half after quitting them, before I got help. Your posts have helped me to not go there & to in fact flush them. my old addictive brain kept them for pain emergencies either for me or a loved one.

my story started when i was 22. i am now 56. i went thru a situational depression. a break up. i cried a lot so my mom dosed me with her highly sedative anti depressants. i got stuck on those for 10 yrs. it was hell to come off. i thought i would die of a heart attack. it took many tries. i was left with chronic anxiety. i would take some benzos whenever i could get my hands on them. i would get episodes of depression or anger swings & never sleep without help. I always thought it was pms and settled into the fact that not sleeping was just who i am & try to be productive rather than be afraid at night. over the yrs my dr would try different anti depressants. all made matters worse. then I got breast implants which left me in chronic nerve pain. I eventually was put on opioids for unfounded pain. They loaded me up with these narcotics for yrs. which made mood swings worse & eventually did not help the pain much but i needed them for the addiction.

after many yrs on these and the shame of it I decided to get off. well that was horrible. 3 mths of such bad pain & nervousness I was desperate one day while in mexico. i remembered this med they touted as non narcotic called tramadol. they had it! i tried it. omg. it worked better than anything both mentally & physically. I got 90% of my life back. about 7 yrs of going to mexico & buying as much as I can. until the U.S. decided it was now an opioids and could not buy it in mexico. my local dr prescribed it at half the dose i was used to. i made do for about 5 yrs. i realized it was only a matter of time before i was completely cut off due to unfound pain. so i quit on my own. i weaned for 3 mths. after a few wks I didnt feel great but it was doable. until all hell broke loose. severe depression & anxiety, constant nausea, severe pain, everything felt overwhelming, barely got out of bed, severe hypoglycemic episodes, blood pressure through the roof, then drops that would cause fainting, rage like ive never experienced, loss of memory. labs show nothing wrong yet i felt on the brink of death. caring friends gave me the name of amen clinics. they said my symptoms & brain scans showed damage & all evidence pointed to bi-polar disorder. once I was treated for that everything became calm & normal. i am in complete confidence that these horrible, opioids, especially tramadol, caused this brain damage & that I was not born with it.

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