Help with Tramadol

[fedup4now]

I have been on Tramadol for over a year now - bad lower back pain - my Dr prescribed it because of my history of addiction.  Well - now I am hooked on this stuff - it gets rid of the pain, keeps my mood up - but if I try to cut down the depression is crazy.  I now I am taking more than I need - if I feel a little low energy, a few pills and I am back in the game.  I have no problem getting as much as I want - my Dr. thinks it is harmless.  
I can't function without it - what the hell do I do now?  I've already battled Oxy and alcohol - I would never have started on this **** if I had known.
I've read the posts on withdrawl - and if it is worse than oxy count me out - I just don't know if I can cut back - once that dark depression kicks in - I know I will take a few to fix it.
I feel like I am caught in a catch 22, and no one knows what I am going through - it's just me battleing my own thoughts.    

[fedup4now]

Thanks all for the replies - it is just nice to be able to let this out, and not feel so alone in this.  My partner, friends etc., have no idea.  
I am up to well over the prescribed amount, and have to top up with other opiods, and tramadol purchased on line.  I am terrified to tell my Dr. - I don't want my supply cut off - the idea of cold turkey scares the hell out of me - I've done it before with Oxy, and while physically awful ( I was pretty sure I would die), the dark depression that I get when withdrawing from tramadol is more than I can handle.
I  am going to keep reading your experiences, and see if I can wrap my head around slowly tapering down.  
I get so frustrated at times, I busted my *** to get off of the other stuff, let my Dr know that I cannot go near anything addictive, and that I love opiods so need to stay very far away from them.  And hear I am.  
I am in AA, and have a lot of people patting me on the back for staying clean and sober, all the while I am hooked on tram.  I feel like a low life living this lie.
Anyways - glad I found this forum - I guess it's a start  

[wings110]

Greetings -
Ultram ain't much fun coming down, is it?  I started taking this marvelous "non-addictive" substance in 1995 or '96 for pains in back, both hips and shoulders and it did a pretty good job but now I want to try to get off the stuff after surgery to fix bulging disk and replace both hips and shoulders.  Cold Turkey ain't my cup of tea.  The depression and having every nerve in your body on tense alert plus waking from dozing off with a "start" just about drove me  crazy so I started a taper program about 2 months ago and while the wd symptoms are bad, they seem to be less severe by GRADUALLY tapering off the stuff.  I was taking 400 mg/day and have backed off to 150 mg/day.  I have been at 150 for about a month now and just last week tried to back off to 125 without success.  Just like most everybody else, when the symptoms hit, I popped that other 25 mg pretty quick.  I am breaking a 50mg pill in half (course they say never break or crush these things) but the ones I am taking are not the long acting type.  Anyhow, if you want to chat from time to time, please drop me a note here at Medhelp and I can sure listen and share ideas with you.  I will try just about anything to get off this stuff - Good Luck to you - Wings110

[IMAlive]

I totally can relate to you story.  I have been on tramadol for several years for cronic back pain.  For the first 8 months I only needed to take 2 a day for pain then it just went up from there till I toped out that the max amount percribed.  There was a month over a year ago that my pain got so bad and I had built up such a tolerance to it that I over took my percription by 4 days.  Those where the worse 4 day of hell I have ever spent till I got my script filled again.  I swore then that I would stop taking them for real, but everytime I tried I got such bad anxiety and depressed and the pain was so bad tthat I would have to take them.  This was such a vicious cycle.  What has finally been working for me is that I went to my doctor about my anxiety and depression and started from there.  She put me on lexapro and neronton (sp?) I waited for about another month then I started a very slow taper program and kepted a tramadol journal.  I also had my husband hand out my pills. He would put them in one of those daily pill dispensers for me.  It took me about 3 months to taper (maybe even more I would have to get out my journal for exact time).  I finally did get all the way off.  What I am trying to say it you need to make a plan and get others involved with it to help you out this can't be your own little secret.  There is help all around you.  And you don't have to do it all today or tomorrow as long as you make a plan and stick with it.  

[sonie413]

Not that long ago I was taking about 30 ultrams a day. The w/d from those is pretty hard, I relapsed several times because it was so hard. I had also take very pain med in the book. I was on pain meds for about 8 years and the last 60 days with out them have been the best and the worst time.  Good Luck to you.

[avisg]

as worried say you have to taper down off of ultram dropping one pill every 4 to 7 days seems to work the best . However there is no way not to have any withdrawal but this will minimize it a bit . How many are you taking a day.

[ILoveLukey]

I used to take Trams when nothing else was availabe. I do not have alot of experience with them but have heard the w/d are bad. It tends to be slow here on weekends, but someone with Tram experience will be on....hang in there.

[worried878]

Avisg can help you with a taper as it is important to come off of tramadol slowly to avoid seizures...tramadol in addition to its narcotic efects has an anti-depressent effect as well...so the depression can be worse during wds than other narcs...but depression is part of all narc wds...u probably already know this..she will need to know how many you take to hep...your doctor could supervise your quitting them and would be the safest way to do it...keep posting..