I suppose every doctor has his own opinion, but I think the cough syrup with guaifenesin/codeine is not hard to get. The bottle I have is marked C-V (Category V), one of the least-strict levels of controlled stuff. The doctor prescribed it with one or two refills that I can get without getting a new prescription each time, and I can get it refilled via mail-order. That’s some pretty low-level controlled substance level of control.
I had some nasty side effects from Tramadol, including nausea and headaches, so stopped using it pretty quickly.
Exactly.
Update: the tramadol seems to be working. Her pain has reduced to manageable levels, even when she moves. And she was mentally pretty much with it all day yesterday. They transferred her to rehab yesterday afternoon.
The rehab place has a two week quarantine for all new patients, so i won’t see her for a while, but she has a phone, so hopefully we’ll keep in touch. (And i think my sister is bringing her her laptop, but she hates video conferences.)
I once was in extreme pain and they gave me morphine in the ER and some tramadol for the pain on the next days. Man, I totally get how you can get addicted. You are suffering from the pain, you take the pill, and then you feel sooooo much better, with a little buzz like one too many drinks.
I you’re having real troubles, I can totally see wanting to feel like that.
…and to the OP: IT is really effective and, aside from a small buzz, really no side effects.
I have some relatively major surgery coming next week and I have been considering what they might prescribe for pain medication. I am a child of the sixties and I am no stranger to pills of various kinds but that was 50 years ago. ( I agree with @nearwildheaven and his friend’s opinion of cocaine. My first line was scary enough to keep me away from it) The strongest thing I have taken since then was prescription ibuprofen for tendonitis once.
I am looking at a month or two of recovery.
had gallstones and the ER gave it to me via IV , worked really well.
I haven’t taken it for myself but it’s been prescribed for dog use for a couple of my beasts, seems to control pain pretty well for them.
What country were you in where you got it IV? It’s not yet approved by the FDA here in the US , in fact it was rejected for IV use recently over safety concerns.
Or were you perhaps given IV toradol? a non-narcotic pain med, it’s quite effective for many types of pain.
My arthritis doctor gives me Tramadol 50mg to take as needed in case I need a little extra bump over my regular arthritis medication. Works okay, no evident side effects. A bottle of 30 pills lasts me a year or more.
I’ve occasionally wondered about addictions to pain meds, as I get no useful relief from codeine, oxycodone, or even dilaudid. They just make me itch. No bliss, happy warmth, hug from the universe, etc. Mercifully, whatever they plug into my IV post-op seems to keep pain tolerable, (probably fentanyl or toradol?) but again, nothing to make me want more, more, more of the stuff.
My doc is trying me on tramadol now, and so far, no miracle disappearance of pain, but it doesn’t seem to make me itch.
I have told people many times that opioid painkillers don’t really lessen the pain, they just make me feel better about being in pain - which, in some sense makes it more tolerable, I guess. But it’s also a good reason to avoid them.
But for post-surgical pain, which is where my personal experience is, Advil was way more effective against pain than the Tylenol 3 or Percocet they gave me.
My brother, who knows almost NOTHING about medications, OTC or prescription, recently had some oral surgery. He wasn’t getting much relief from the painkillers so I gave him some Advil gelcaps. He informed me that “my green ones” were better than what he’d been prescribed.
Maybe there are some genetic elements. I think it may be simply that a lot of post-surgical pain is caused by inflammation.
I’ve also only “used” Tramadol by giving it to my dog. The pain I get that needs medication is 90% of the time a migraine. I use a generic sumatriptan. It’s the only thing that works for me. Although, by brother-in-law once gave me a toradol when I was at his house when a migraine hit, and I didn’t have any medication with me. I don’t think it worked on the migraine … it just knocked me out more-or-less.
Tylenol does absolutely nothing for me for anything. Ibuprofen is what I take for muscle aches, and it usually does the trick.
I love advil, and the other OTC NSAIDs. But my mom can’t have them because they are rough on her kidneys.
The tramadol is working reasonably well. But it’s not clear that her left leg is strong enough for her to do the physical therapy she needs to do if she’s ever going to walk again. 
She’s pretty cranky about not being able to get to the bathroom on her own, and the other indignities and uncertainties of being in rehab.
Glad your mom is doing well. Just wanted to add my experience. I was prescribed Tramadol once, and it didn’t work at all for me. One pill did nothing for the pain, two pills did nothing for the pain and made me feel like I was drunk.
Me too, but I topped out at ten … and felt nothing.
Waitaminnit – If you were in any significant pain (as you must have been to drop ten of them) and you felt nothing that can be read to mean the pills worked not at all for you, or that they worked very very well.
Yeah, to be clear. I tried various dosing schemes around the prescribed dosage (one every four hours, two every eight hours, two before bed, two first thing in the morning. Then in frustration increasing the dose; two, then three, then five, and finally a 10x dose).
Looking up Tramadol on Erowid and seeing it was a popular recreational drug in Europe I assumed I was at some point going to hit on a dosage that, if it didn’t do anything for my sciatica pain, would get me high.
But no, it wasn’t any better Pez.
Finally went back to the doctor and engaged in my first ‘drug-seeking behavior’, but before I could finish my request my doctor interrupted and informed me he couldn’t prescribe anything stronger . . . and I informed him that I was thinking about a prescription-strength NSAID.