# What the heck? The #2 side effect on my new med is "discouragement?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 7, 2022, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156 "2022-09-07T18:16:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2022, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/21 "2022-09-09T02:02:04Z")
Run that by again? ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/22 "2022-09-09T19:20:11Z")
My wife started taking 50mg of Tramadol twice a day just last week for severe arthritis pain in two of her right toes. It was so bad she not only couldn’t walk, just trying to sleep was almost impossible. It’s dulled the pain a little, but she still has trouble walking or standing for any length of time. She goes back in a week for a checkup on how it’s going. Hoping it starts to give her a little more relief. I can hear her give out little gasps of pain when she walks. 🙁 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2022, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/23 "2022-09-09T22:43:39Z")
I STILL can’t believe propoxyphene in all its forms (generic Darvon/Darvocet) was withdrawn from the market. While its action was mainly to make people not care that they were having pain, there are situations where that is appropriate, and lots of people have told me that they had good results with it. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2022, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/24 "2022-09-10T00:39:36Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I STILL can’t believe propoxyphene in all its forms (generic Darvon/Darvocet) was withdrawn from the market. It was a good decision to pull it. Metabolites of propoxyphene cause significant cardiac, CNS, and respiratory depression, greater than that of other opioids. Cardiotoxicity was also seen, again at significantly higher rates than from other prescription opioids. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2022, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/25 "2022-09-10T01:23:40Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > At least it didn’t say “ennui, with a creeping malaise and a general disenchantment.” _Pour encourager les autres_ would have been even more worrying. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2022, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/26 "2022-09-10T21:11:14Z")
I have taken so many pain meds. I was physically addicted a couple of times. ‘Discouraging’ is the least of my problems. I hate the fuzz you get in your head on big doses of pain killer. I’ve recently had pain pumps and I learned what level of pain relief I needed to be comfortable and yet awake and aware. I wish Doctors had more of a precise way to determine what level of pain you’re in other than the 1 thru 10 question they ask. Funny, I’m always ‘10’. Whether it’s a stumped toe or a bleeding 10inch long gash. When you’re in the throes of agony you’re not competent to make that decision. In my opinion. Yeah, my life sometimes is discouraging. I don’t need a pain medicine to tell me that. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2022, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/27 "2022-09-11T21:24:37Z")
I’ve taken various “Tumor Necrosis Factor blockers”, whatever those are, Simponi at the moment which work rather well. Not waking up screaming is probably more due to Simponi than tramadol. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2022, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/28 "2022-09-11T21:42:27Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I’ve taken various “Tumor Necrosis Factor blockers”, whatever those are, Simponi at the moment which work rather well. Thanks, I wrote that down for her to ask her MD about. She goes in Wednesday, but only has 2 days of pills left and she insists on toughing it out. 🙄 Thankfully her job can be done from home or she can easily miss a few days. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2022, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/29 "2022-09-11T21:52:28Z")
They are expensive as hell, but the manufacturers offer some kind of a deal. It was $100 a month, now I get it for $5.00. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/30 "2022-09-12T01:23:26Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > You amaze me, Sir. I take 50 mg three times a day, and have never noticed anything approaching addiction. If I forget to take it at night, my back is uncomfortable in the morning. Only my rheumatologist can prescribe it, my GP is in fear of losing his license if he prescribes it, so it obviously may be addictive. I should post my last CT scan - my nurse Mom in law and nurse Sis in law and nurse niece looked at it - and the comment was “Oh my” with a side eye to me on crutches instead of in my wheelchair - if you look at my lumbar spine, it sort of goes vertebra, vertebra vertebra, mass of calcium shards roughly columnar in form, with a comment of “that looks painful” at the bone spurs in my hip sockets. Most of my various docs including my orthopod are still amazed that that is _all_ I am on, usually by this time people are in wheelchairs, lined up for hip replacements and moving up the ladder to something more zippy. Most of them have commented upon my insane chronic pain threshold. I have a nice pain control contract with my doc, it is actually Tri-Care preventing me from dependably getting my monthly supply without a whole damned dog-and-pony-show. My doc is more than willing to jump through his needful hoops. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Regarding tramadol, are we talking addiction in that you trip on it, or that without it you wake up screaming from pain in the middle of the night? In that I tend to wake up not actually screaming, but good solid groaning and a serious disinclination to move until I can actually take something and have it get to work. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/31 "2022-09-12T03:37:07Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > . . . . discouragement, . . . It does sound odd as a side effect. . . As odd a side effect as “false sense of well-being”? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/32 "2022-09-12T14:17:30Z")
> [@susan](#): > > I was discouraged by Tramadol because it had no effect on my pain, but I don’t think that’s what they mean! Me too. Up to a (researched for potential dangers) 10X dose that did . . . nothing to me or the pain. Went to the doctor shortly after and asked what else he could prescribe. Doctor started to tell me that Tramadol was the strongest drug he ““could”” prescribe. I told him I was actually thinking about a prescription strength NSAID. Which didn’t really help either. During my last bout of Sciatica I noticed the bottle of ~10 year old Indomethacin I still have. Prescribed when I was diagnosed with Gout. Checked, yup it’s a NSAID. Took it, and the Omeprazole that goes with it, and my Sciatica was pretty much gone after three or four doses. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/33 "2022-09-12T14:56:56Z")
@crowmanyclouds Find another doctor, especially if your sciatica is worsening. Maybe you could be ready to make the step towards pain management. When I first started seeing my pain management doctor for my neck, my primary care doctor couldn’t disguise her distaste. Mind you, I had been complaining of neck pain to that very PCP for twenty years. Her solution was for me to cut down on the amount of Vicodin I was taking. (2 a day) The pain management doctor had an MRI done, and he told me I had a pinched nerve. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2022, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/34 "2022-09-12T15:47:07Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > Find another doctor, especially if your sciatica is worsening. This is two PCPs and more than ten years ago. When the NSAIDS didn’t help he sent me to the pain clinic at the hospital and the fine doctor there got out his prescription pad and . . . scheduled me for facet joint injections. They left me entirely pain free for almost three years. I’m of the ‘pain is a symptom, let’s see if we can treat it’s source’ school after seeing what my mother went through with her back all my life. Sadly, I’ve reached that point in life where the other conditions take precedence\* over the lumbar spinal stenosis and Covid hasn’t made keeping the other conditions in check exactly easy. \*Pain I can deal with, almost going into respiratory arrest because of the Myasthenia eight times not so much. ---
**Author:** ![dummygladhands71](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c0e974/32.png) [@dummygladhands71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dummygladhands71)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/35 "2022-09-13T02:12:20Z")
No, I didn’t OD on the stupid Tramadol. I took 2, decided I hated it and switched to Nighttime Ibuprofen which worked very well, without discouragement. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/36 "2022-09-13T13:40:13Z")
@aruvqan I don’t think Tricare is the cause of the “dog and pony show” regarding the dispensing of pain medication. Not too many years ago, the Feds again revamped the controlled drug prescription process. Drugs were moved from one category to another, more restrictive one. Opioids could not be refilled. Primary Care doctors were limited as to what they could prescribe for pain, and how much. If your pain could not be handled by your PCP’s limitations, you had to see a Pain Management doctor. It’s a different world with a Pain Management doctor. You have a contract, and you must submit to regular testing. It isn’t perfect. But Pain Management has allowed me to have more of a life than I had before. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/37 "2022-09-13T21:04:30Z")
I do have a management contract, but every freaking month I have to call tricare and remind them that I have the contract, it is a monthly prescription that needs to get filled AND they for some freaking reason they don’t stock tramadol at the base hospital pharmacy, which would make life so much easier - the only source is at the local drugstore [Walgreens] because they won’t mail it to me despite Tricare shoving GET EVERYTHING FROM OUR MAIL ORDER PHARMACY down our throat - except they don’t have the pill I need for diabetes, they won’t ship opioids, they can’t seem to deliver my blood pressure medications on time, it is always delayed until I have run out for anywhere from a week to a month. Personally, I would like to stay alive, I didn’t wrestle with 2 forms of cancer for 6 years to let Tricare to kill me off. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2022, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/38 "2022-09-13T21:41:40Z")
@aruvqan Express Scripts is the mail order pharmacy used by Tricare. And they DO ship opiods! My Pain Management doctor faxes my prescriptions to Express Scripts, and I typically get the Rx a week later. No calls to Tricare necessary. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156/39 "2022-09-14T04:53:10Z")
well, every time I call in, I get told no they can’t express scrip me my tramadol. So I get my doc to scrip it to Walgreens. They will not allow the extended release, just the standard, and as I said, every month I have to call Tri-to-get-care to get my opioids. And when I suck it up and use express scrips for my 11 other scrips, they are never sent out in time. I wish I actually had the fucking cash to just freaking buy my meds without having to get fucked over by the military that my husband spent 20 freaking years of his life in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-the-2-side-effect-on-my-new-med-is-discouragement/971156.md?page=1)