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Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

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Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#111

Post by pron »

gohrt wrote: post #97
pron wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of the very natural Oxygen Catastrophe[1] that wiped out much of the life on Earth? Some organisms began dumping a toxic chemical (oxygen) into the atmosphere in such large quantities that it practically killed off everyone except for those weird mutants that evolved to actually breathe that dangerous toxin synthesized by the killers! [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

Right. Oxygen was very bad for life when it appeared. Oxygen is good for life now, that evolved in its wake. I don't want massive quantities of stuff appearing that is bad for life now .

But that "bad stuff" is just as likely to be a natural product (as was oxygen during the catastrophe) as it's likely to be synthetic.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#112

Post by SixSigma »

FreeFull wrote: post #109
SixSigma wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, carrots are a plant that takes up gold if given the oportunity.

Is there anywhere that one could read more about this?

I got it from Bob Cannard's lecture at Berkeley's Edible Education series 2013

Bob's - http://vimeo.com/album/2192316/video/51178467

The whole series - http://vimeo.com/album/2192316/page:2/sort:preset/format:thu...

I've just watched it again to double check, it wasn't a chore.

This year's - http://edibleschoolyard.org/library/edible-education-101-ris...

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#113

Post by vhost- »

This drug is absolutely awful.

I had an abscessed wisdom tooth and was prescribed Tramadol for pain management while I waited for an appointment to get teeth extracted.

Not only did I feel like shit all the time, when I tried to stop taking it, I couldn't sleep at all. It was entire nights of frustration, tossing and turning. I was only taking 100mg a day to just get through work and whatnot too.

I decided to do some research and I read about people taking upwards of 700mg to 1000mg a day because of addiction. I can't imagine being addicted to this drug. It makes you feel foggy, your throat burns, you have headaches...

I've been sober for most of my life. I've never drank or taken prescriptions recreationally. So this experience was pretty terrible.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#114

Post by mendelk »

glifchits wrote: post #90
mendelk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> massive traction For an example of one accused of such see [0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidan

I know HN likes making endnotes and 0-based indexing... but this seems excessive

...and something of which I'm apparently very guilty[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=mendelk

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#115

Post by pdkl95 »

titanomachy wrote: post #75
ck2 wrote: post #72

wtf are anti-depressants being given to cattle?

Tramadol is a painkiller, not an anti-depressant... but the question remains.

It's both a painkiller (mu-opioid agonist) and an anti-depressant (SSRI, or possibly SNRI style effects). The fact that many people - including many doctors - ignore the latter effects is, in my opinion, criminal negligence. The SSRI effects are NOT trivial, and last days compared to the "hours" of opiate effect you get.

Even worse, the "M1" metabolite of tramadol is itself an active drug in similar ways, and metabolized by the same P450 liver enzyme. So the rate the drug leaves your system is a nasty differential equation as it competes with itself for the the same enzymes. That equation gets even more insane if you have anything else in your system that interacts with it, even slightly.

Note: I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad drug - the SSRI effects by themselves can be useful for certain types of pain (neurological pain in particular), so it may be a better choice than morphine/{hydro}codine in some cases. People just need to be aware it's not a "trivial" drug, that it can interact with many things, and has more effects than the usual painkillers that may be contraindicated for some people.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#116

Post by dredmorbius »

tedunangst wrote: post #70
dbbolton wrote: post #50

>The farmers apparently take the drug themselves, at pretty high dosages, saying that it allows them to work without getting tiree. That's insane. Tramadol is among the worst painkillers to use recreationally, which is why it's often the next line of analgesic therapy after NSAIDs and before hydrocodone. It is a comparatively weak mu-opioid agonist, so the dose a person would have to take to get a prototypical opioid…

It doesn't sound like they're trying to get high, per se, just work harder without feeling it. A "recreational" dose would probably interfere with getting work done.

Half right. They're using for the benefits you cite, but taking a much higher than indicated dose (based on Yonatan Zunger's fascinating G+ thread on this topic).

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#117

Post by pbhjpbhj »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #63
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crude oil is [primarily] organic if your context is [petro]chemistry. It's not an organic foodstuff however. Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things. Why is it that you don't wish people to know where their food has come from and how it has been produced. What is the problem with that for you? If you don't care that your children's food is saturated with growth hormones, fungicide…

"Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things." Dunno what his problem is, but my problem is the context in which "organic" gets used with respect to foods: a massively expensive, misleading, anti-science marketing campaign by huge corporations intent on profiting from people's mistaken belief that "organic" products are--by virtue of being "organic"--healthier or better for the enviro…

>an attempt to force labeling on them and prevent their development //

Labelling only provides people with the ability to chose. Against choice? Consumers can make uninformed choices, sure, but that choice is central to a democratic system.

Who are the corporations that you're referring to? The majority of organic stuff we get in the UK is from small corporations or local farms, it is the bigger corps that stand to lose most from a desire from the public to have organic (and similar ethos) production of food. For example factory farming chicken relies on being able to pump them full of antibiotics.

You say it's a mistaken belief that organic food is better - the meta-studies I've seen seem to flip between the two positions pretty rapidly. Can you cite maybe one or two studies that you would say show incontrovertibly that organic production is no better for people, animal welfare and/or the environment? Thanks.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#118

Post by dbbolton »

MortenK wrote: post #107
dbbolton wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Opioids, like other euphoriants, are somewhat "stimulating" (mentally) in small doses. I know they aren't just "trying to get high". The problem is that in order to get any psychotropic effects from Tramadol, the dose is so high that a lot of other really nasty effects will come with it. A 5mg dose of hydrocodone would accomplish the effect they are after with very little negative physical effects. I…

This is not entirely true. Tramadol are often given in doses of 3x50 mg a day for pain relief. To a user with no tolerance, the most common lowest dose, i.e. 1x50 mg is certainly more than enough to give a euphoric feeling, ability to concentrate, stress relief and a whole range of other effects. Effects obviously can't be compared to "real" opiates, where the effect is much stronger and have more of a sedative effec…

The article, and Zunger's G+ discussion as mentioned below, clearly established that they were taking very high doses.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#119

Post by dbbolton »

phylofx wrote: post #105
dbbolton wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Opioids, like other euphoriants, are somewhat "stimulating" (mentally) in small doses. I know they aren't just "trying to get high". The problem is that in order to get any psychotropic effects from Tramadol, the dose is so high that a lot of other really nasty effects will come with it. A 5mg dose of hydrocodone would accomplish the effect they are after with very little negative physical effects. I…

You can't be serious. Are you advocating hydrocodone here which has one of the highest potential for debilitating addiction, so much so actually that it is banned in many countries and no longer available for medical use?

I explicitly stated that I was not advocating drug use. What I am advocating, if you would actually bother read my comments, was that the farmers' dose and dose frequency are pushing the therapeutic window (i.e. it nears toxicity). Regularly taking a therapeutic-level dose of hydrocodone would not push that window.

If you think repeatedly taking extremely high doses of Tramadol is somehow safer than small doses of hydrocodone, then you're unbelievably ignorant.

As a side note, hydrocodone is one of the least potent mu-opioid antagonists, but it is more potent than Tramadol. That is the only reason I mentioned it by name.

And I take no stock in governmental drug laws with regard to pharmacology, so your mention of it being removed from medical use in a handful of countries means nothing to me.

Re: Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All

#120

Post by dbbolton »

ceol wrote: post #96
dbbolton wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Opioids, like other euphoriants, are somewhat "stimulating" (mentally) in small doses. I know they aren't just "trying to get high". The problem is that in order to get any psychotropic effects from Tramadol, the dose is so high that a lot of other really nasty effects will come with it. A 5mg dose of hydrocodone would accomplish the effect they are after with very little negative physical effects. I…

Wouldn't Tramadol be classified as a psychotropic just by virtue of it inhibiting your central nervous system? As someone who takes Tramadol for pain, it does have an odd effect when I'm tired: I find I become less tired, as if the Tramadol is making me ignore my fatigue. Oxycodone, on the other hand, causes me to be more drowsy. This might be what the farmers are talking about.

First of all, I didn't say that Tramadol was not a psychotropic. I said it was not a potent one.

Second, the definition you are describing is a depressant, not a psychotropic.

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