jimbo61My mother who is 82yrs old has shingles in the eye. She was in hospital for 11 days having treatment. She is now at home and having chronic head pain she has been prescribed tramadol 50mg to alleviate the pain. I don't want her to be in pain but am worrying about side effects.She is also taking prozac & diarhetic tabtets.
Is tramadol safe?
- Posted:
- 31 Jan 2011 by jimbo61
- Topics:
- pain, herpes zoster, tramadol, chronic
Details:
Answers (3)
falcore131 Jan 2011
My brother takes Prozac and the Dr tried putting him on Tramadol and the internet and pharmacy said it was not a good idea because the interaction between them. But the Dr reassured us it was safe, so he took them and of course he had a reaction. So he stopped taking it and was fine. Tramadol is a good pain reliever cause it is not very addictive. I know other people who are on it and it woks just fine. I suggest you talk to your pharmisist and look up drug interactions on this site. It's the drug interactions I would be worried about. Hope that helped...
christine...31 Jan 2011
I checked the interaction between the medications and this should be avoided! Below is the information regarding tramadol taken with prozac. Please ask her doctor to switch her to another pain reliever to be on the safe side. Best wishes and I hope she feels better soon.
chris
"Interactions between your selected drugs"
DzooBaby31 Jan 2011
Serotonin syndrome could be a danger when taking Tramadol with an SSRI-which Prozac is. Elderly patients are usually at more risk than younger patients for sensitivities to drugs-you are right to question. You dont want them to suffer in pain but you do want to be safe! Talk to the prescriber and let them know your concerns and ask if there is another pain reliever he could prescribe. I hope her eye is ok! Shingles in the eye can be a very dangerous thing and can cause severe corneal scarring sometimes. Post herpatic neuralgia is also very painful! Diuretics are usually not a concern with interacting with analgesics, it is the interaction with the Prozac that is the concern. When she does start an analgesic, it should be the lowest effective dose. Like I said the elderly are more sensitive to drugs than younger people are.
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Tramadol can be very addicting if taken for more than a few months. I've read so many horror stories here about trams and how addicting they are. Happy to hear your brother is ok. That combination of meds isn't good and the pharmacist was right, the doc wrong. Trams work differently than other pain relievers. Hope you're doing well,
take care,
chris
Isn't Tramadol a narcotic? Larsy1966 :)
According to this information, yes. Others disagree but most will agree it CAN be very addicting.
"Tramadol and acetaminophen combination is used to relieve pain. When used together, the combination provides better pain relief than either medicine used alone. In some cases, you may get relief with lower doses of each medicine.
Tramadol belongs to the group of medicines called opioid analgesics (narcotics). It acts in the central nervous system (CNS) to relieve pain. When tramadol is used for a long time, it may become habit-forming (causing mental or physical dependence). Physical dependence may lead to side effects when you stop taking the medicine. Since this medicine is only used for the short-term relief of pain, physical dependence will probably not occur."
it is an opiate according to the research I have done and it has the potential for abuse/addiction, I am not saying that a woman in her condition would allow this to happen but the meds she is on with it---
I was thinking about this question for awhile and remembered when I first took my first antidepressant which was prozac (which helped immensely) I developed a very bad cold that winter and was given a prescription cough syrup that contained codeine. I remember falling asleep and feeling like I was on very strong drugs, almost like I felt like I almost died. Years later I found out that mixing codeine with prozac is very dangerous but this was 15 years ago and no one ever warned me about the interaction. The psychiatrist I was seeing said I was very lucky. I only realized that I remember recently reading something about tramadol and how it changes in your body to codeine. I'm not really sure if this is true but I definately would not combine the drugs together. I'm sure your Mother means the world to you so I just wanted to let you know what I remembered even though it looks like you already figured this all out. Good for you! Larsy1966 XX