Thanks for the info. I was looking around for the methocarbamol, which I think was Robaxin?? but did not find it here anywhere .... Was hoping to get something quick (I'm in the USA) May have to opt for another like flexaril maybe ...

Cheers!

i ordered american Soma from pharmacy ex. it arrived quickly and in the mail, no signing. great quality product. imo american Soma is much better than mexican Soma. works great for my back.

can't type well - MD attack

question i always wondered about.

what are the differences between the 5 msucle relaxants commonly sold in the us:

Cyclobenzaprine
Flexeril
Skelaxin
Soma
Zanaflex

obviously i pasted those

thanks,

patietn2all

Cyclobenzaprine is Flexeril.

It seems that dantrolene is the drug of choice in the UK, but I don't know about the USA.

I wanted to add a bit here:

In my experience, Soma did not show up on any urine test. This includes the ER toxicology screen. (this is after heavy abuse for aproximately 3 days)

I too have had experience with the Soma Coma. It is a drug when taken on an empty stomach has a rapid response. When taken as prescribed (no misuse) I experience good therapeutic benefits. When misused, Soma Coma ensues. Be careful, I've had a burnt face, broken rib, etc. and can not ever remember how it happened when I take Soma (2-3 pills). I've never taken it in combination with another medicine so I can't speak of the effects.

Like any drug, it is to be respected. The chemistry compared to other drugs in the muscle relaxer category makes Soma one of the only true muscle relaxer medications. It is highly effective.

I've never experienced any w/d symptoms or addiction problems. This is with extreme misuse as well when I did use it. <there may have been some speech slurring after a day or so of it out of my body but all my reflexes and body control are fine about 12 hrs after the last pill>

I think you may have been lucky, as there are numerous references to carosoprodol withdrawal after continued use of moderate-to-high doses, even with gradual withdrawal in these cases:



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1998178

come on i was on Soma for years no withdrawal at all...you can get a good rushy feeling off Soma for about a week..then no matter how much u take no rush..if u take too much it causes tremors and "semi-seizures" anyway Soma is better than flexeril--thats just my personal experience---

my brother-in-law actually gets it for insomnia--he says he 'needs' it to sleep maybe he has withdrawals

I agree that I was probably fortunate with regards to lack of withdraw symptoms. It could be related to the way that I use them, but overall I tend to rarely experience withdrawl with medication.

Insomnia could well be a withdrawl symptom. I would imagine if a person has a temperment that is predisposed for anxiety, insomnia, etc that stopping a medication that inhibits those traits could enhance the effects.

Longterm use, I can't really relate to but the pubmed article is interesting. Thank you for it

Interesting. While Dantrium is available in the US, its use is limited to certain specific disorders and not widely prescribed. The side effects regarding liver damage are generally the reason for its limited use.

TO the poster above. IMO methocarbamol is not that great of a muscle relaxer. It is OTC in canada and quite expensive. Its exact mechanism of action isn't even known by the medical community. It just makes my legs a bit rubbery feeling and tired (not is a sedated sort of way.......... more of a "I cant stay awake for the life of me" kind of exhausted feeling. It also gives many people dry itchy skin rashes and a sore stomach. I find Soma much much better. Methocarbamol almost feels "dirty". But if it works for you than go for it. P.S. You can probably just order it legally from any canadian pharmacy if your in the states. cheers

I think this is because there is a different approach regarding skeletal muscle relaxants in the UK. We only use them if someone's stuck in bed with chronic severe spasticity, and consider that relaxing skeletal muscle is not useful for locomotion since the surrounding or antagonistic muscles will also be relaxed. LFTs must be taken before and during use.

For acute muscle spasm, we will probably use diazepam; again the patient will be stuck in bed with it.

Wow the UK sounds like a bad place to live for health care. You would have to be bedridden to get medical help to work and run your life. I had a sport injury related to neck mussels and was given Soma and advil. I could get out of bed but only if I placed my head to the right side and held it there. The treatment helped and I was able to go to work in 48h. It took two weeks to get better so sounds like in the UK I would be off work for two weeks. I guess its the socialized medical system that could be the issue.

My sister moved to the UK because she was head hunted to be a programmer for SkyTv. She was on clonazepam 0.5 x 3 a day for 14 months. When she took her medical records and RX history to the Dr in the UK. She was told that the max they will give you anxiety medication was two weeks and she would have to switch to SSRI.
She asked for the DR to call her MD in North America and she was told it did not matter and was Rx'ed 20 x .05 clonazepam and then switched to SSRI. Over the course of a year she had to go off work twice one-two months for stress and having tried 4 antidepressants some that would not have been used in 20 years becasue of the side effects she had to move back home. She saw two MD's in London and was told the same thing.

She did have to go to the hospital ER after 5 days of finishing her clonazepam because of withdraw and they were great. The dr in the hospital were more intrested in her health and getting her out of the hospital ASAP and back to work.

UK doctors are encouraged to stick to two weeks of benzodiazepine treatment, but with a taper at the end. This is to avoid creating addicts from long-term use. Still, not all doctors stick to this, or prescribe the Z-drugs instead.

It's not true that you need to be bedridden to get medical help, as there is no 'War On Drugs' meaning doctors have to be scared of prescribing narcotics. They will prescribe opioids after weaker analgesics have been tried without worrying about the DEA. But they will try to find out the cause of the pain in the meantime. You won't be forced into having the various injections mentioned often on the board.

Europe in general does not recommend carisoprodol for any indication and is banned in some countries, as the clinical efficacy of carisoprodol, meprobamate, and methocarbamol as muscle relaxants is not well established. It does potentiate the effects of opioids, which is one reason it's popular amongst those who purchase it from IOPs. The significant side-effect of drowsiness doesn't do it any favours in terms of being prescribed. Obviously it is used by some as a hypnotic.

One of the main causes of lower back pain is weak abdominal muscles, leading to poor posture. I know that my lower back pain increased a lot after abdominal surgery. Skeletal muscle relaxants will relax the abdominal muscles just as much as the lower back muscles, which won't do any good if you try to move around.

Physiotherapists encourage pelvic tilts and the like to try to strengthen abdominal muscles and improve posture when walking, which is supposed to help lower back pain. Weight gain around the abdominal area also compounds the problem. Surgery is tricky and has a fairly high rate of failure.

Lower back problems are indeed a problem!

Regarding your sister, I would imagine most UK doctors would want to find the cause of her stress before prescribing, and hopefully address the issue as much as possible.

I just purchased Carisoprodal for helping me to withdraw from Tramadol. Did I make a bad choice? I read some where that it is used for this, am I wrong? I need to get off of the Tramadol or they are going to kill me. I had to go to the emergency room last week with an extreme headache where they did a catscan to find lesions on the cerebellum. The Dr said it could be mini strokes. I am being scheduled for an MRI next week. They gave me 2 shots one for a migrain and then they gave me a shot of Toradol which seemed to help. I was taking a great deal of the Tramadol. 12 a day, I know this was stupid believe me I would like to kick myself in the butt. Acutally I cut myself down to 8 on the advice fo the neurologist. But, I have had one week of hell. Headaches everday, the normal withdrawl symptons that I will not get into. I want to cut down even more tomorrow since it is a week since I cut down to 8. Anyway any advice here would be appreciated.

i have had problems with Soma, i use to take them until coma came, i quit because i had 2 freinds od and die from them ,,one went into a Soma coma and busted her head open and died,,another went into Soma coma and had a major heart attack and died,,this was my wake up call no more somas. both friends died last year within a couple of months apart.
and i had withdrawl coming off of them, headache, nauseau , dirrhea, about 3 days of hell.

Bill

I've never heard of it being used in this way. Can you remember where you read it? Taking the two together may depress breathing and increase drowsiness.

Actually I have been searching all over trying to find where I read it. I think I got it mixed up with Suboxone. I am now reading that this could help. I have 90 of the Soma and I cannot use them. Actually I guess when I finally kick the Tramadol they will be good for the back spasms I get. What do you think?? I see the Suboxone at Allmeds for a hefty 70.00 for only 30 Do you think that would be enough to kick this ugly habit??

Suboxone may help with the opioid aspect of Tramadol withdrawal, but people say that the other aspect of Tramadol's action causes extra problems due to sudden depletion of serotonin.

Buprenorphine is a very potent opioid compared to Tramadol, so you may end up worse off. Personally I would use Tramadol to withdraw from Tramadol, especially if you can get your hands on long-acting forms of it. There are also liquid formulations which should allow precise tapering.

So, what you are saying is that I should just taper off the Tramadol. I am doing that right now.. Like I posted earlier I have cut it down to 8 from 12 in one week. Yesterday was the first day I went without a headache today it is back and it is a bad one. I do not know what to do to get rid of it. I have not cut down anymore. I wanted to cut down to 7 starting tomorrow but I do not think I will. Where would I get the liquid Tramadol. Why do you think this would be better... just trying to understand this. I really do appreciate your help.

I'm assuming your tablets are 50mg, so that means you have to jump by 50mg. With a liquid, you can creep down the dose by 1mg a day if you want. Some people have made liquid from the content of capsules, but you have to know what you're doing.

I would withdraw slowly, maybe by 1 pill a week even, and take APAP and/or an NSAID for headaches. You could cut down by half a pill every other day alternatively.

Goldpharma used to sell Tramadol liquid, but not any more.

Thank you for your help. I will cut down slowly like you said. The withdrawl from this is terrible, especially getting up and going to work everyday.

If you are tapering from Tramadol "slowly" it stands to reason that you probably need to slow down a bit. Going from 12 to 8 is a fairly aggressive reduction.
Many failures with a taper schedule come from that first reduction being too much.
A guideline I have used is a 15%-20% reduction, then holding for 3-4 days then another 15%-20% reduction, etc.
Also, be aware that you may get a transitory "brain zap" symptom from Tramadol withdrawal due to a change in your seratonin inhibition. Some people have confused this with a seizure. Just be aware that it might happen.

There definitely IS a withdrawal phase if Soma is stopped abruptly, and it hurts (muscle aches, insomnia. anxiety, tachychardia). I heard that ativan calmed the symptoms down immensely.

martind,
Thank you for your input. So, I guess I cut down to fast. The reason I did that is because the neurologist insisted that I immediatly drop down to 400mg per day. I wasn't real pleased with that but my head hurt so much I did it. Is that why I am still getting headaches (not as extreme) every morning?? Do you think I should drop 1 a week or is that not enough? I fiqured I would cut down every 7 days. Is this acceptable??

Faeriewitch thank you also for your input. Actually I do have ativan which I purchased the last time I tried to get off of the Tramadol. The reason I was looking for something different is because it makes me very tired when I take it. I need to be alert at my job. I will try it again though because the withdrawls are also keeping me from doing my job properly.

Ativan will do little for Tramadol withdrawals, apart from help you sleep and relax skeletal muscle. It is also very addictive, and withdrawals from Ativan may be even worse and certainly more dangerous. Be very sparing if you do use it.

Faeriewitch was referring to lorazepam helping withdrawal from carisoprodol not Tramadol, and therefore effectively meprobamate, which has some cross-tolerance with lorazepam, thus explaining why it would help.

I read someones post here who stated that they asked a sub doctor about sub helping with withdrawal for Tramadol, and they posted that the sub doctor told them that it would help. Now how it would help I am not sure, because I thought that Tramadol worked on a different receptor than the opioid's like hydrocodone, oxycodone, etc..

I really think that there are so many different opinions by doctors about Tramadol, some will tell you that it works on the same mu receptors as other opioids and then there are other doctors that say Tramadol works on totally different receptors. I tend to think that Tramadol works on a different receptor due to it being compared to SSRI's. But I am no doctor, I would have to say that the best bet is to call a few sub doctors and see what they say, you may find that each sub doctors says something different.

But lets remember, these doctors who can prescribe suboxone and subutex only had to take an 8 hour course online to be able to prescribe suboxone and/or subutex.

I also agree with nephro about tapering off the Tramadol.

Tramadol does have a weak affinity for the mu-opioid receptor, but its other mechanisms involve an enhancement of serotonergic and adrenergic pathways. It is these mechanisms that another opioid such as buprenorphine cannot substitute for.

But in fact one of the metabolites of Tramadol has a significantly larger affinity for the mu-opioid receptor, which probably explains why the opioid action is somewhat delayed. In a similar way to codeine, some people have less ability to metabolise Tramadol due to the CYP2D6 enzyme. It may also explain why the maximum daily dose by injection is larger than by the oral route.

There's also the financial incentive for Sub doctors, ethically wrong as it may be. Even in their 8 hour training sessions, I doubt whether Tramadol would be even mentioned, considering it isn't scheduled and therefore isn't yet recognised as a drug of abuse by the medical profession generally.

The neurologist had to recommend dropping instantly to 400mg per day otherwise he could be considered negligent for 'condoning' larger dosages. But when someone has to withdraw from larger than 400mg per day, I doubt that many doctors will be trained to deal with such instances. One has to balance the benefits of slow withdrawal against the risks of continued use outside the 400mg/day maximum recommended limit. But if this has been going on for some time, maybe it's a drop in the proverbial ocean?

In any case, it would be wise to make sure someone is always around when taking large doses of Tramadol just in case.

Best of luck and keep us informed. I'm sure many will benefit from your experience.

I thought this thread was about Soma withdrawals? Sorry to have reverted the thread.

Regarding Tramadol, I'd be very careful with that as seizures are far more likely to occur than with any other opiates: I found out the hard way.

How addictive is Soma?

More than the medical community generally recognises. If you have a Medscape password, the link is below. Otherwise, here's an excerpt:



http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/430140