Why Isn't Tramadol Showing Up In My Husband's Screenings?
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My husband is prescribed tramadol, he takes 50mg tablets, 1 pill 4 times daily. But for the last 2 months they said his urine test at the Dr is negative for tramadol. He has taken them every day as prescribed for 2 years as part of his pain regiment for his auto immune diseases. The doctor said if his lab work next month is negative of tramadol again, he will dismiss him as a patient. My husband has 5 auto immune diseases and it took 3 years to get to a doctor who could figure out what was going on and get him on treatments. If he's dismissed, he will lose his biologics treatment for the illness, not just pain relief. Does anyone know why his tramadol is not showing up in the lab work??? I'm at a loss!

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11

Because it is not strong enough the DEA plans to cut more opioids in 2025 that means more doctors quitting and opioids will be watered down with Tylenol

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10

My sister had the same issue with a controlled med, percocet. She was dropped as a patient from that practice. I asked my pain mgmt doc about it & he said she needed a blood test, that way it can be found & is a clearer picture of all his narcotics. I hope his Dr will agree to do this because just doing the urine only can miss some substances. Also she has 3 autoimmune diseases, so there might be a connection, I'm not sure of that.
Good luck to your husband.

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9

Re: Marjorieson (# 4) Expand Referenced Message

Yep Rhodes oxycodone is barely real now.

Last year it felt a little too strong, I would get a headache and a little bit of nausea when I was new to taking pain medication. But this year, I guess it works because I don’t have withdrawals but it doesn’t actually help the pain that much. And it’s not my tolerance level because I got a different generic a couple months ago and that worked just fine

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8

Re: Tiff (# 3) Expand Referenced Message

I wish doctors tested pills on request.

I was pretty convinced that Aurobindo was making fake Adderall, every time I accidentally got a new batch from the Pharmacy I would complain to the FDA.

Turns out over the years they’ve had multiple issues with their factories and I don’t think they can make Adderall anymore because they were just so bad at it.

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7

Please immediately file an FDA Medwatch complaint. Does he feel like the medication works as it is supposed to?

Generic medication can vary in strength up to 20% from the name brand, either stronger or weaker, and for the past couple years I think a lot of these pharmaceutical companies have been pushing exactly how weak they can make medication before people notice and complain.

I wouldn’t be surprised if these meds were made extra weak by the Manufacturer hoping people won’t notice.

There was also an article recently in pro publica (I think) talking about how some pharmacies actually receive counterfeit medication because they go through a middleman who deals with the wholesalers, and sometimes that company will buy medication from people that they haven’t taken, or from their dead relatives or whatever, and then send them back to the pharmacy as new meds. And then the pharmacy distributes the counterfeit medication not realizing it.

Or someone someone is stealing his meds and replacing them with something that looks similar.

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6

Re: Long strokes (# 5) Expand Referenced Message

Except that a pain clinic or a doctor prescribing tramadol and testing for a compliance would be testing for tramadol.

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5

Tramadol would not show up, especially on one of those instant result cups. Only cocaine, opiates, cannabis, benzodiazepines, methamphetamine, fentanyl, suboxone, etc. Tramadol wouldn’t show up on any of those.

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4

I take another type of pain med 4 times a day. 3 years ago, 1/3 of this dose would knock me out. Now I could take 3 at one time and get no pain relief. Occasionally I even have some withdrawal type symptoms without missing a dose. The meds are s***!

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3

Bring pills to doctor for testing, this has been happening with narcotics around the states, mostly with ADD meds but also others. If believe the problem is the meds are not what they are supposed to be.

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2

Everything I'm reading says that Tramadol should definitely show up, and should do so for up to 4 days after someone stops taking it.

Ref: Tramadol Detection Information

Is he on any other medications? Has anything else changed in his lifestyle that may affect the results?

What are the markings on the tablets he's taking?

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1

2 possible reasons...Someone is swapping out his meds with a look-alike or placebo & after enough time all traces of the tramadol he originally was taking are now gone. I suppose while even less likely that the pharmacy is making a mistake or using placebo in place of actual medicine. I have seen cases where someone found a pill that looked very close to a particular med & they secretly swapped out the narcotic med that was prescribed with this mystery pill... When the patient's body started telling him something was wrong\withdrawal symptoms etc & quite a bit of investigation, he discovered his relative was stealing his meds.....but other than wrong med or pills so old they've lost their potency there shouldn't be any reason the testing wasn't seeing the Tramadol in his system. Make sure you use a Pill Identifier (easy to find online) & make 100% sure the med he is taking is actually the right one.

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