I think Ultram Cures AS

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After a foot surgery I was on a little used pain killer called Ultram which relies on different priniciples thatn most pain killers. it inhibits some receptor in the brain or something

While I was on it my head cleared. I could function better than all the other people around me. I felt better. The best few months of my life were that time, despite the fact that I couldn't walk and I was in serious pain. All the difficulty and anxiety just melted.

Has anyone else ever been on Ultram? Did it have this effect on you?

-W

I'm glad you found something that helped you, you may want to mention it to your doctor because as a pain med I doubt it's used to help AS and they may want to test it but unless you still feel as good since you stopped taking it than i's not a cure hut it may be a viable treatment.

Ultram is also called Tramadol and I have had exactly the same experience as you.

I took a whole load to knock me out on a flight and ended up wide awake, and very sociable, normal even.

First, some background information:

- Ultram and Tramadol are synthetic opioids that fall into the same class as methadone.

- Endorphins are opioid peptides that your own body produces. They play many roles within the body, but they are best known for pain suppression and that good feeling you get after exercise.

- Peptides are a class of chemicals whose physiological functions have some things in common with neurotransmitters and other things in common with hormones (also known as steroids).

- Opioid drugs are designed to be chemically similar enough to endorphins that your body recognizes them as such and puts them to use for the same purposes as endorphins. Hence their effectiveness as "pain killers".

The bad news:

Unfortunately, if you take any drug that is intended to replicate a chemical that your body produces on its own, your body will adjust by producing less of its own chemical (endorphins in this case), and when you stop taking the drug, you will be left short of the chemical. And you will definitely feel the effects until your body adjusts to the change.

This is why drugs like this are so addictive.

Anyone interested in using Ultram or Tramadol in ways other than directed should first ask their doctor about the drug's potential for addiction, what the withdrawal feels like, how fast some people develop a tolerance, and how all of this can negatively affect your brain and behavior - while you are using the drug, if not permanently.

Last edited by release_the_bats on 14 Mar 2009, 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A fibromyalgia doctor told me years ago that Ultram does have some opioid activity (mu-receptor; standard pain killer mechanism), but for some reason wasn't classified as such. And also some other effects that might amplify the pain-killing effect. It would be really interesting if people noticed a distinct benefical difference between Ultram and something like Vicodin.

do you believe that "Ultram cures AS"?

AS is not defined by anxiety. It is easier to be social when you are not bound by anxiety, but AS is not defined by an aversion to social situations. It is possible to have social success with AS. Having less anxiety has no impact on having or not having AS. Anything allowing for you to function within a range which you perceive to be normal or have "recovered from AS" is merely helping you manage issues and problems which you percieve to be a direct or indirect result of having AS.

What if my body doesn't produce enough of this chemical anyway ?



Wow - people experiencing Tramadol withdrawal feel like they have AS.

...it sounds to me like you were just high. Performance increases in various areas with various substances, but those substances weren't meant to be taken long-term, don't have the same effect long-term because of tolerance effects, and generally cause a lot more problems than they solve. For example, cocaine is famous for increasing attention, alertness, and performance on just about any intellectual activity. (It is also highly addictive and will ruin your brain and your life, of course.)

Endorphins are also released when you injure yourself--which could be why self-injury is so common among autistic people. I function better with self-injury than without it. A half hour after a minor injury, I'm more able to cope. Of course, for me to resort to it things have to get relatively bad, but it can literally pull me out of a meltdown.

The problem, of course, is that it's self-injury. It's socially unacceptable and it causes injuries that can be serious, or can become infected, if you're particularly unlucky. Plus, it doesn't solve whatever problem you're trying to solve, anyway; it just forces you on alert (I think possibly with me it may be the alertness--epinephrine/norepinephrine--rather than the endorphins that make the big difference) and lets you cope temporarily. Operative word: Temporarily. Which is why I do my best not to need it... and almost never do. Solution? Find other things that serve the same purpose.

Same thing goes for taking heavy-duty painkillers. It's a quick fix, not a solution. You end up with an addiction, and you have to take it to feel normal rather than feeling good. Plus, your body starts to wear down from the onslaught of substances that shouldn't even be present for more than a short time; so your physical health starts to deteriorate too.

Self-medicating with opiates is a Bad Idea. Trust me on this one.

Anyway, it's not like addictive and/or illegal drugs are the only solution. There are psychiatric medications that are made not to damage your body long-term, and not to give you the "high" that makes illegal drugs so psychologically addictive. (You may get a physical addiction, but if you do, you can just taper off. It's the psychological addiction that's the real problem.) There are also skills you can learn that fulfill whatever purpose you were trying to fulfill by taking the drug. And there are ways to relax, to reduce fear, to increase self-esteem, that don't have much to do with drugs or therapy. There are even ways to get natural highs, the kind you were meant to have, the kind that won't hurt you--play with an animal; go for a walk; do something you really truly love; listen to your favorite music; hug your kids.

I think, maybe, what you lost when you were on the painkillers was probably anxiety, social inhibition, and maybe depression. Those are peripheral to AS--they're not AS itself. Living without them is a heck of a lot better than living with them; but good news--they're solvable problems. They're not hard-wired in. There's nothing about AS that is intrinsically unpleasant, even though it does make you more vulnerable to things that are.

Sorry but psychiatric drugs do damage the brain as well as the body when taken long term.

Good luck with that one if you have AS

That's a legitimate question, but the trouble is how is a doctor to seperate people with an endorphin shortage from addicts who just want to get high? They'll just assume everybody who wants such drugs is an addict. (And maybe some addicts actually are self-medicating for an endorphin shortage, who knows?). But I wouldn't expect to win any such argument with a doctor in the next 100 years.

There is an interesting opioid called buprenorphine that I've heard of in some cases being prescribed for depression (ok, one case (not me)). It's also used for fibromyalgia which is how I know about it. It's a mild opioid that actually counter-acts itself at high doses.^* So, at a low dose it works normally, but if someone tries take more to get high, they'll get an increasingly tiny effect the more they try to take. And if someone with a 'habit' (tolerance) takes it they go into instant withdrawl. So it's seems basically addiction- and abuse- proof. But, of course, that doesn't matter. It's an opioid and it's cousins are Vicodin, Oxycontin, morphine, heroin, so it's a very touchy subject.

The point of all that being that it has shown some promise as an antidepressant and anxiolytic, but even if shown to serve well as such, is unlikely to ever be approved for such uses.

There's far too much morality that gets in the way of rational drug policy (in America, anyway).

- - -
^* yes, that sounds implausibe. The purported mechanism of action, as I understand it, is that it has an extremely high affinity for mu-opioid receptors, but only wealky activates them. So, a small dose will saturate all of the mu-receptors in someone's body, but stimulate them so weakly that there will only have a modest effect (whereas having all receptors stimulated by morphine == severe overdose). So, if a person takes more, there are no more receptors available for the drug to stimulate.

If you were short on endorphins, you would probably have some very strong endorphin-seeking behavior. For example, you might run marathons; excercise brings out endorphins. You might be very involved with body-piercing or tattoos. You might engage in self-injury (there are many reasons you might do this but endorphin seeking is one of them). You might have compulsive sexual behavior of some sort, whether solitary or social, or just have a very strong sex drive. You might engage in thrill-seeking behavior such as gambling, extreme sports, dangerous driving, or have a job that involves taking risks--many people who have very high-pressure jobs, from lawyers to day traders to EMTs. Generally the human body and mind will attempt to restore an ideal state; and when something is missing there will be attempts to compensate.

Think "in comparison to cocaine or opiates". Yes, I'm aware of things like tardive dyskinesia, or being an inch shorter because you took Ritalin while you were growing up, but choosing illegal or dangerous drugs rather than psych meds because the psych meds can have long term effects is just ridiculous!

A decent psychologist will only prescribe a medication when the long-term effects, if any, are an acceptable risk. You have to remember that long-term mental illness damages your body and brain even worse! It may not be physical brain damage in most cases but spending a couple of years with major depression can near-permanently change the way you think. You may, for the rest of your life, automatically think, "I should kill myself", whenever you have a bad day. (I have that effect. Still do--even after the depression has been gone for over a year now.)

Yeah, don't do cocaine. Bad idea. Or Ultram, either.

Hey WanderMan, it's good you got a break from the symptoms and even better all you needed was Ultram because I believe that's a relatively mild pain reliever. The only time I felt like that was with Percocet and I felt wonderful then and functioned easily. I had energy and drive. I didn't feel any physical discomfort. It was like being kinda happy and normal, but not happy in a really intoxicated or "high" kind of way. That was the best time of my life but it didn't last because wouldn't you know Percocet, the one thing that made life easier, is an addictive schedule 2 I think (2 or 3) narcotic.
I take Ultram time to time for headaches and it makes the headache go away but that's about it.

There is no way to "cure" AS as it is not something that's curable. I'm glad it got rid of your anxiety, but be assured you're still an Aspie. People with AS have brains that are wired differently, and short of re-wiring, there is no "cure." Even if there was I would still rather have AS than not.

There are probably ways to get your body to produce more endorphins without taking strong opioids that were designed for analgesic purposes.

You'd have to consult a neuro-endocrinologist. Medically significant endorphin deficiency is probably a rare problem, and one whose symptoms would be incredibly similar to more common disorders - like depression, which often decreases the amount of endorphins you produce.



It's a lot worse. There are physical symptoms including pretty much any digestive problem you can think of, insomnia, the sense that time is passing very slowly, intense pain in your bones and muscles, twitchiness, restlessness, fatigue (combined with inability to sleep), always feeling too hot or too cold, etc. It feels like you're dying. And it can last for weeks.

synthetic opiods - tramadol -similar to methadone?

i spent years on methadone and they were the happiest undiagnosed days of my life, to be sure. my life was regulated, routined, blanketed with reduced stimming, and the frontal lobe problems were reduced.

BEWARE: the she-wolf speaks from experience. the withdrawals can take months and months and make heroin withdrawal look like a dainty frolic in the park.

not worth it....