Tramadol has long been considered a 'safer' opioid painkiller, but new research suggests it may be just as addictive as oxycodone - if not more so.
Oxycodone, the generic version of Purdue Pharma's blockbuster Oxycontin, has been widely blamed for the getting millions of Americans hooked on opioids.
Animal studies of tramadol suggested that the drug had a less powerful draw, so it was given a lower schedule classification by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
But according to a new Mayo Clinic study, people who get tramadol are no less likely to keep filling prescriptions for painkillers long after their surgical sites have healed than are those prescribed other drugs.
The scientists warn that no opioid is totally safe to prescribe, as even the 'least addictive' form can still become a habit, according to their results.
Tramadol was long considered less addictive than other opioids, but a new study suggests people are just as likely to get hooked on it as they are on hydrocodone or oxycodone
Three quarters of all opioid addictions are thought to begin with prescription drugs.
Namely, they're thought to begin primarily with oxycodone (generic for OxyContin) or other faster-acting opioid painkillers.
But in recent years, as the opioid epidemic has left millions addicted to prescription drugs, heroin and fentanyl, doctors have increasingly prescribed tramadol, as it is long-acting and supposed to produce less of a high.
While other these fast-acting drugs take effect within 20 to 30 minutes and last about four hours, tramadol takes longer to hit, but continues to treat pain for over six hours.
Steering away from the most dangerous and habit-forming drugs certainly seems like a good preventive measure, but tramadol may not be as safe as it was once believed.
Overall, tramadol became the second most prescribed opioid after hydrocodone in the US in 2012, and between 2008 and 2014, prescription rates doubled.
In the specific context of post-operative prescriptions, rates vary somewhat.
Among patients who underwent any of the 20 most common surgical procedures between January 2009 and June 2018, only four percent received tramadol, compared to the 51 percent that got hydrocodone and the 38 percent that went home with oxycodone, according to the new study.
Still, that represents a marked increase in tramadol prescriptions over the past decade, and other research has estimated that anywhere
