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Archive for January, 2012

Ultram is one of the most popular medications used for pain management these days. It is considered as the most commonly prescribed painkiller medication in the US these days and there are several reasons for such a vast popularity this drug enjoys among doctors and patients. The main benefit Ultram delivers is it’s universal effectiveness in what concerns pain relief. It doesn’t really matter what causes he pain because Ultram doesn’t affect the source of pain signals but rather blocks them from being interpreted by the brain and experienced as ordinary pain. That’s how all opioid analgesics work and before you start using Ultram it is highly recommended that you learn more about opioid painkillers first.

Opioid painkillers were one of the first to be introduced to the medicine. For a long time opium poppy seeds and their extract were used as a powerful analgesic in smaller doses. In larger doses this substance is infamous for being one of the most devastating recreational drugs in the world – heroin, which is a derivative of morphine. Morphine was one of the most commonly used potent analgesics in its time until its misuse lead to serious limitation and regulation of its use. Morphine is still used for pain management under strict medical supervision and quantitative regulation for relieving the most severe forms of pain. Another common painkiller of opioid nature is codeine that is also used for addressing severe types of pain. Ultram may be not as potent as these substances but it is also an opioid analgesic, which means that it shares the same mechanism of action as these drugs. And that’s the most important aspect of this drug class that you have to know before using any medication of this class.

Opioid analgesics deliver a depressing effect on the central nervous system and bind opioid-receptors that are found in the central and peripheral nervous systems. These receptors are responsible for transmitting nerve pain signals to the brain. When the brain receives such signals coming from a particular part of the body it interprets it and experiences it as pain in that particular point of the body. So when there are no signals coming into the brain with respective information it “thinks” that everything is OK and there’s nothing wrong in the body. With such a mechanism of action it is possible to eliminate virtually any type of pain that can affect the body. And that’s exactly what drugs like Ultram do when they are taken by the patient.

However, besides the analgesic effect there can also be an additional effect when using opioid drugs and depending on the medication being used it can be mild to severe. We are talking about the depressing effect on the nervous system. This usually results in decrease of concentration abilities, drowsiness, dizziness and similar symptoms that can make it hard to perform tasks requiring increase concentration. That is why when using any opioid drugs like Ultram it is recommended to avoid driving or performing other hazardous tasks until you know exactly how the drug affects your sense of awareness.

The pharmaceutical industry has a mixed view of generics and this shows up in the way drugs are marketed. Every manufacturer wants to promote the sales of its big-selling branded drugs. Once the research and development costs have been recovered, they are very high-profit products either until the end of the patent period or until the other manufacturers independently recreate the chemistry and patent their own versions. To protect the home market during the term of the patent, manufacturers therefore push the message the branded drugs are the trusted, reliable drugs. The generics are cheap copies which may be fake because they come from foreign manufacturers, or may be understrength or contaminated because of poor manufacturing standards. This is scare tactics designed to deter you from logging on to the internet and buying “cheap” drugs from international pharmacies. The manufacturers want you paying top dollar and keeping their profit margins high. But the patents run out and, whether the manufacturers want it or not, the generics appear and drive down the price of the affected drugs. This is finally good news for all those who have been buying at their local drugstores.

At this point, the manufacturers sing a slightly different tune. They must suddenly be reassuring. You will be relieved to know the FDA must approve a generic before it can be sold on to the US market. That ensures you are protected. There is still the risk of the foreign manufacturers – those unscrupulous people who have been trying to take all your money by selling at prices way lower than the US manufacturers. Anything foreign is dangerous and you will risk your own health or the health of your loved ones if you buy through an international pharmacy. This is, of course, all propaganda designed to protect the home markets. The international pharmacies sell to countries all round the world. If they were selling fake or dangerous drugs, the word would spread like wildfire and they would quickly go out of business. Yet the same pharmacies have been in business for years.

Now that we have everything clear, let us get to the news. A US manufacturer has spent the money to get FDA approval for Tramadol Hydrochloride Extended Release tablets. This is a generic version of Ultram ER for those of you who like the better known brad name. The trademark is held by Valeant and this deal allows the intellectual property rights holder to continue the revenue stream, adding a slice of the generic revenue to its revenue from the continuing sales of the branded version. This way the US manufacturers keep more of the money in their hands. If foreign manufacturers were allowed to sell directly into the US, it would dramatically affect the local profits.

Why should you seriously consider using the generic extended version? There are two answers. First, even though you are buying from a local manufacturer, you will save money as against the branded version. Second, Ultram ER is excellent if you have a long-term pain problem. For example, those who suffer arthritis often feel stiff when they wake in the morning. The extended version version leaves more active painkiller in the bloodstream for long and makes it easier to get up in the morning.

There’s a rumor going round the town that pain is a bad thing and should be eliminated at all costs. Big Boss Pharma has been lining up all its big guns and, no matter what level of pain you may be experiencing, there’s a pill with your name on it, assuming you get a prescription, of course. You may therefore look at the headline here and be a little surprised. How on Earth can anyone think pain is a good thing? Well, let’s go back to basics. Darwin, that inconvenient man who thinks we all evolved rather than were created, argued only the best-adapted species survived. When it comes to survival, the animal needs to know when it’s under attack. If it’s injured, it decides whether to fight or flee. So pain is a vital signal to the brain. It warns when the body is injured. We benefitted from that when we were less well-developed. Today, it’s still useful to know if we have accidentally injured ourselves or just picked up something too hot to hold.

The modern response is to seek medical assistance and then we complain when the pain message continues. So let’s move medical science a few years into the future. Rather in the same way we can switch off the burglar alarm when we know someone has broken into our home, a researcher develops a magic pill to switch off pain. It changes the brain’s chemistry so we are no longer aware of any pain. Would you take it? Before you rush to an answer, the scientist confirms this is an all or nothing pill. Either you feel pain or you do not. We will have to go into real science fiction to arrive at a treatment that only switches off the pain messages from the injured part of the body. In theory, it should be possible to neutralize the pain by interrupting the nervous system at key junctions, e.g. where an arm or leg joins the body. Unfortunately, this also risks paralyzing the arm or leg.

Anyway, back to the question. Would you take a pill to switch off pain? It would mean you would not know if you were damaging any other part of your body. Suppose you drink something that’s burning your tongue, or slip and make your existing injury worse. You would not know to stop drinking or seek further medical treatment. Completely turning off pain is dangerous unless you lie perfectly still and take no physical risks. Even then, you would not know if you were getting the first pain symptoms of a heart attack or warning indications of any other disease. The present situation is safer because a drug like Ultram simply reduces the intensity of the current pain. You can still feel if any other part of your body is injured or you are affected by some other disease or disorder.

In Europe, the trend is to teach people pain management techniques so they can achieve a good quality of life without having to rely on painkillers. This does not deny a role for drugs like Ultram. They will still be used for short-term relief should pain flare up. The hope is people can cope without risking dependence on drugs.