Patient was educated on the side effects of using Tramadol as follows:
- Hepatic damage
- Tramadol intake can lead to hepatic injury, thus compromising liver function.
- Risk for hepatic damage multiples many fold, when Tramadol is taken with alcohol.
- Hepatic injury and altered liver function can result in increased bilirubin levels in the body, resulting in itching, jaundice with yellowing of skin and sclera, dark urine, altered metabolism with nausea and vomiting, pain in the right upper abdominal quadrant, and fatigue.
- Respiratory depression
- Tramadol affects the respiratory center in the brain through action on the opioid receptors in the brain.
- This induces slowing down of respirations and the breathing pattern can become irregular.
- This can result in reduced gas exchange with elevated carbon dioxide and reduced oxygen levels in the body.
- Overdose of Tramadol can also cause respiratory arrest.
- Feeling of high and addiction
- Tramadol, in the process of altering the perception of pain in the brain, promotes more serotonin in the brain.
- Increased serotonin in the brain produces a feeling well-being and high, by interacting with the brain’s reward circuit.
- This feeling of high, experienced by the individuals on Tramadol use, becomes highly desirable and thus adds the potential for addiction to Tramadol.
- This makes Tramadol one of the most commonly abused drugs.
- Tolerance and addiction
- Individual taking Tramadol at a recommended dose for prolonged time develop tolerance to the drug and experience blunting of the therapeutic response to Tramadol at that dose.
- Diminishing therapeutic response prompts an individual to increase the dose of medication intake, to derive the desired effect.
- This sets the cycle for addiction and abuse.
