taking tromodol vs. vicodin

hi everybody.  
i am about 7 weeks clean from taking 3-4 7.5mg vicodins a day for 7 YEARS.
i am having surgery next week.  there will be lots of pain durring recovery and i will need to take some pills.
i never want to go through withdrawls again!  i will take sparingly and have someone to monitor me.
my fear is going through withdrawls again.  i am only going to allow myself one a day.  my doc knows about my previous addiction.  question for everybody is:
if i need to take one a day, which would i have less chances of going through withdrawls from,
tromodoll- 25mg a day, or vicodin- 7.5mg a day????

thanks for your help

[shelby74]

One a day.  It seems very unlikely that you would have w/d's.  I would just have everything in place to make sure you do not relapse.  Make sure whomever monitors you, will strictly abide by what you tell them before the surgery.  

good luck to you!

shel

[teenutz]

I am new to this forum, and I am trying to answer as many questions as I can. I used to be a Vicodin addict myself. Took 15 a day, abused Darvocet and many other drugs as well. Stopped cold turkey one day and went through hellish withdrawals for over a week. I never want to go there again. I have a degree in psychology and know alot about drugs from the classes I took in school and my street abuse for over 17 years. Tramadol, better known as Ultram or Ultracet (Ultracet has acetominophen in it whereas Ultram does not) is a relatively new pain killer. The funny thing is techincally it is not classified as an opiate drug, but it works on your opiate brain receptors. The reason why it is not classified as an opiate is because it does not effect your breathing and heartrate like other narcotic drugs. However, tramadol supposedly has a low addiction rate, but I am beginning to hear more and more stories of people becoming hooked on it. Made me feel pretty good, and I think it can be addicting. It is not as strong as Vicodin, so if you were to choose go with the tramadol. The only problem is it might not give you enough pain relief depending upon how much pain you are in after your surgery. Tramadol kind of has the same effect as Darvocet. They are equally as potent, but Vicodin is more potent and more addicting than either of those two meds. 50mg of tramadol may give you more pain relief than a 25mg dose. 25 mg is low for pain relief. One a day is going to be tough after surgery. You may need to take three or four, but that depends on your pain tolerance and addictive personality. Remember, you don't want to be miserable after surgery, so if you go with the Vicodin just have someone monitor your dose like you said. I still think you are going to need more than one pill though to get pain relief throughout the day. Lortab10 are the strongest (blue pills) so maybe you could get a script for those and break the pill in half. One Lortab10 is equivalent to taking two 5/500mg Vicodin or hydrocodone.  I hope this helps a bit. Good luck to you!.