Tramadol is effective no matter what the type of pain

This is a potentially useful warning that the body is being injured. It’s tied into the autonomic part of the body so it produces an almost instant reaction. If we can move out of the way, we do. If the injury cannot avoided, we know to get help. Unfortunately, once we have the message, we cannot switch it off. The pain keeps on going even though we have done all we can get treatment. In the longer term, this makes pain just as much a problem as the original cause.

Pain and time

If the injury is going to respond to treatment and leave us healed, the short-term pain is called acute. All we need do is live with it while it slowly ebbs away. The treatment approach is to give a high initial dose and then taper it down as the healing begins. That way, we should finish taking the Tramadol as soon as the healing is complete. But if the pain is going to persist for any significant period of time, we call it chronic. Here the treatment approach is to go for the lowest possible level of Tramadol to get the pain under control. This should be alongside other pain management techniques so that we can ease off the painkiller and reduce the risk of dependence.

Nociceptive pain

This is damage to a specific part of the body. You know immediately where because the receptors closest to the place injured send messages to the brain. This can be from an external cause like the heat from a fire, or it can be internal from a disease like arthritis.

Neuropathic pain

This is pain resulting from damage to the nervous system itself. It’s often a by-product of diseases like shingles or diabetes, or from pressure being exerted on the nerves passing through the spinal column whether by injury or degenerative diseases. Sometimes, there’s no obvious cause for the pain.

Why is Tramadol effective?

As a painkiller, Tramadol works inside the brain to block the arrival of messages from the damaged part of the body. Under normal circumstances, the messages are carried by neurotransmitters, chemical chains that change their composition along the chain to pass the message. The drug breaks the chain so the message cannot reach that part of the brain designed to recognize the pain and take action. So, no matter what the cause, Tramadol interrupts the passage of the message. If the pain is moderate, it will block the pain completely. If the pain is more severe, it reduces it to a mere ache.