Tramadol prescribed on my honeymoon?
I was 25 years old when I got married to my college sweetheart. We have been together since the first year and discovered a new world while being with each other. The wedding was beautiful and we decided to take a short trip to Paris. The two weeks spent there were lovely and in the last day we went out for some souvenir shopping. While we were crossing one of the major streets in France’s capital, a crazy cab driver hit us while taking the wrong curb. My husband suffered minor injuries but I was hurt pretty badly.
I remember waking up in the hospital and asking for my Charlie, being almost desperate that I could not move. A nurse came to my bed and said that I was to rest, that my husband was fine and would soon come to me. She gave me a mild sedative and when I woke up again, it was night and Charlie was standing right by my bed and holding my hand. He told me what had happened and regretted making the decision to come to Paris. The driver had died in the accident, he added. Was he ok, I asked? Yes, he had a small head bump from the fall and a twisted ankle. Why could I not move? They said I had fractured one of the bones in my leg, the femur, and it was pretty serious.
It was in Paris that I was put on Tramadol for the first time and fortunately, it helped me to get through many nights when the pain was unbearable. I decided with Charlie that it was for the best to prolong our stay in Paris as it was rather risky to travel in that condition. While I began to recuperate, Tramadol was administered to me on a daily basis, at first two tablets a day (100 mg dose) and then it was increased up to 250-300 mg/day as the pain grew worse. When I stood upright for the first time in a couple of months, it hurt like hell and I asked the nurse to consult the doctor for an increase in the dosage. After he saw me, he raised the dosage to 350 mg/day and said that was the limit.
Charlie stood by my side day and night, taking part in all the training and exercising, using the Internet to search for new recovery techniques and also to read about Tramadol. He did not want to have a wife that was addicted to pain-relief medication and he was right. Each time I would throw up and complained of being sick, he begged me to talk to the doctor and reduce the dosage of Tramadol. The side-effects were more serious than that, but I was careful not to express them all to him; there was no point in worrying Charlie more than it was necessary.
Sometimes I felt so weak I could not get out bed, hating all the food that was given to me and feeling nauseous at the slightest head movement. My mouth was dry, I felt constant chest pains and I had become easily irritable. Charlie went over my head and discussed it all with the doctor. He said to him that he had noticed all these symptoms, no matter how hard I tried to hide them and that my leg was almost recovered. Was the treatment with Tramadol necessary? How about stopping it and allowing me to recover? The doctor agreed that Tramadol could become a problem but he was not alright with the stopping of the treatment. Powerful withdrawal symptoms could have appeared and the dosage had to be reduced step by step.
They decided to maintain the same dosage of Tramadol but they replaced part of the pills with placebo tablets in order to decrease the amount of medication. I did not notice the change as the pills looked extremely similar and perhaps the only difference was that the side-effects subsided. The dosage was decreased so much until I had begun to take only placebo pills and thought that my body had finally adjusted to Tramadol. I was released from the hospital, left Paris and arrived home recovered. It would take another two or three months before Charlie told me the truth but I am glad he made that decision for me.
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