Millions of people in the U.S. are prescribed an opioid for chronic pain called tramadol. A new study shows it does little to help the pain and has serious side effects, including raising the risk of heart disease.
In 2023, 16 million prescriptions were written for the medication. As 51.6 million adults in America have chronic pain, the number of prescriptions isn’t surprising. Tramadol is considered a safer opioid as it is thought of as being less addictive and better for daily use.
A study looking at the medical information of 6,506 people from 19 clinical trials found that tramadol isn’t as helpful as thought. While it helps pain a little, it doesn’t help enough to be called “clinically effective.” Eight of the trials found that people on the med had a higher rate of serious side effects than people on placebos. The side effects included heart disease and heart failure. Tramadol also carries the risk of nausea, dizziness, constipation and sleepiness while not alleviating pain.
The researchers summarized their work writing, “The potential harms associated with tramadol use for pain management likely outweigh its limited benefits.”
It’s also important to consider tramadol in the context of the opioid epidemic we are living in. Even if it is less addictive than other drugs in its class, it is still potentially addictive. If a medication doesn’t help, it isn’t worth the risk.
“Approximately 60 million individuals worldwide experience the addictive effects of opioids,” wrote the researchers. “In 2019, drug use was responsible for approximately 600,000 deaths, with nearly 80 percent of these fatalities associated with opioids and approximately 25 percent resulting from opioid overdose. Given these trends and the present findings, the use of tramadol and other opioids should be minimized to the greatest extent possible.”
While the drug has been used for a long time, the researchers wrote, “To our knowledge, this is the first systematic review related to the usage of tramadol for any type of chronic pain with a thorough investigation of adverse events.”
Considering how widely prescribed these medications are, they should be better studied. That is why it is essential, when talking about your health plan with your doctor, to discuss all of your options. Medications play an important role in health. But finding the right medication is key. And that must be balanced with a plan that includes diet and lifestyle actions to support your health. When you approach your well-being holistically, you may be able to avoid some complications.
