Long-term use of painkillers

[Foxhole]

I have severe to chronic daily skeletal and muscular pain due to arthritis and surgical repair damage to body tissue. All various types of non-drug treatment has failed to relieve the daily chronic/severe pain. I am thus on a life-time senario of long-term daily use of a drug therapy (30 yrs). The drug combination is for muscle relaxant combined with pain relief and is based on a fixed daily dose of 3 x 5mg = 15mg Diazepam (muscle relaxant) plus 3 x 50mg = 150mg Tramadol (for pain relief). As this is a life-time use I am concerned about the long-term effects on kidney and liver function in processing the daily dose. Can anyone advise if there is an alternative safer drug combination or provide information with regards to whether this drug combination will cause kidney/liver damage over a long-term use? At this dose level I have no addiction or tolerance problems, however, I am 100% dependent for quality of life with a pain level less than 2 out of 10 (max). As I have tried many other alternative drug combinations I have found that this combination is the only combination that gives me the right quality life for the medical conditions that I am suffering, however, I am concerned about kidney/liver damage over the long-term use, can anyone advise the way forward? Todate I have no information on the long-term use of Tramadol.

[Sharon76]

Hi Foxhole

You may already know the information i am about to tell you as you have been as tramadol for awhile, but i will post it here just in case you don't


Tramadol is a narcotic durg, and usually can act as a sedative as well. There are some problems with tramadol..........they can be highly addictive and if pain relief is changed is it advised to reduce the tramadol first instead of stopping completely. This is to reduce withdrawal symptoms. Tramadol is well know to cause joint pain as a side effect, therefore this could mean the user is actually in more pain, but like you said, it works for you, which is good.

With diazepam being a muscle relaxtantyou could experience problems of the two drugs working against each other, as your muscles relax the tramadol could cause more pain in your joints.


As with any medication, long term use is not advisable but if it is needed then the risks have to be weighed up, which im sure your doctor has already done.

The most dangerous drug to take that causes damage to your liver is paracetamol, these slowly damage your liver if taken on a regular basis, therefore no medication is safe from long term use effects.


Hope it was helpful

[feelbad]

To really find out for sure,the best thing would be to actually bring in a list of all your meds to your pharmacist and discuss this with them.most docs wouldn't know the actual answers you need as they don't even know about half of the meds that actually Rx for there patients,as far as all possible side effects and contraindications.the pharm would.

Believe me,I know where you are coming from with this question as I have a kidney disease that also effects my liver and am also a chronic pain patient with a huge list O meds I need to take on a daily basis.Like the above poster stated,the biggest thing that I worry about is tylenol.I don't use it,unless I absolutely have to.my son also went thru a liver transplant and i use it sparingly in him as well.

it appears that tylenol is not just the little innocuous med that everyone has always thought it to be for like years?the more research and seeing the true effects on many patients is giving this drug alot more caution than in the past.there are alot of people waiting on the transplant list for new livers and kidneys just due to tylenol toxicity form ongoing daily use,at even moderate doses.the worst thing you can do while taking tylenol is drinking alcohol.this just gives the organs,espescially the liver a huge double whammy that totally depletes the chemical needed to actually metabolize it.thats when cell damage starts.

i know how much just having to be on any meds is,espescially when they are all for horrid chronic pain.but this is what we have to do if we want any sort of actual life.i would just discuss all of your meds with your pharmacist.you should also be using only one actual pharmacy for all of your meds.this just helps the pharm look for any possible med interactions before you would actually even take them.they have specific programs in their computer systems that will send up a little red flag when it detects a possible interaction.I know it did this for me when I was going to be taking another muscle relaxer along with the one I was already on.

hope you have a low pain day.FB