[leana]

a friend of mine has been taking lortabs for years,but has started to get out of control in the last year,so she has lost a few drs over it,and bottom line,she cant no longer get any opiate painkiller anymore.she also is in a local drug and alcohol out patient program as well.her new dr gave her tramadol,since it is not an opiate.but in the last week,she has had two seizures.the first time she went to the er,they didnt know whether it was a seizure,or she fainted from low blood pressure,but this last time,she was in a public place and clearly had a seizure.she was taken to the hospital and admitted for tests.today she told me,they told her it was the tramadol to blame for the seizure! so i dont get it,if your in pain,drs always do try to push the tramadol on you,can it cause seizures in people? or would she maybe have taken large amounts to have these seizures? which in her case,may of been the case,but im not sure.any input on this,anyone????

[rxinfonbs]

yes it can cause seizures , generally at higher doses but some people have reported this at lower doses - of 2 to 3 pills - as well.

[Robert_325]

leana .... do you know how much tramadol she was taking leading up to the seizure? Was she adhering to her RX or popping a bunch of them like we so often do while on lortabs? Considering your explanation of her past behavior I am only assuming (like you mentioned) she was probably taking a bunch of them to compensate physically for the lortabs not being in her system.

Tramadol can DEFINITELY cause seizures. That is the biggest drawback about taking that medication. Having had several seizures before personally from my drug use and knowing how bad they can be I would never agree to take tramadol for that reason alone. I wouldn't even take it when I was abusing RX pain meds. It's pretty stupid I guess that I would take thirty 30mg roxies a day on top of 20-30 lorcets, loads of benzos and somas, but I wouldn't take tramadol because I was afraid it would hurt me. Such is the insanity of addiction. But tramadol is NOT a medication to be abused. It's VERY dangerous.

I would try and get her to talk straight to you and find out how much she had been taking. Tramadol is BAD news as far as seizures can go, BUT it doesn't usually happen with small doses. It's normally when we get carried away with taking too many at once or take a high dose for some time that the seizures begin to become a major concern for most people. Of course we are all different and a smaller dose might have affected her. It does happen sometimes. Just knowing that it's impossible to predict with consistent accuracy always scared me away from them.

I know that you realize this already but your friend is in trouble. She seriously needs help as her life is in immediate danger. If she can't get off the RX pain pills on her own she needs to seek professional help. She actually sounds like a good candidate for suboxone/subutex therapy to me. I always recommend doing a cold turkey first (in her case in-patient rehab), but based on what you say about her she sounds like someone who might do much better on suboxone/subutex therapy. Most inpatient rehabs use suboxone/subutex therapy anyway these days.

We help people all the time here on subs. There are threads all over the forum about our success with suboxone/subutex. Don't hesitate to let me know if we can help. I would recommend that you go to the following link and print it for her to read. Assure her that she can do this therapy and if she will do as we suggest she can get past her addiction to RX opiates with little or NO w/d symptoms to speak of at all. I'm here if I can be of help. God bless.

http://www.drugs.com/forum/featured-...apy-50887.html