I am currently taking 600mg pregabalin and 50mg tramadol at bedtime. I subsidize these with taking cannabis (vape) if my RLS bothers me before 2am and a small shot of vodka if after 2am (wears off by the time I have to get up in the morning) to help me sleep.
I don’t love my regime - I would rather not have to vape or drink alcohol- but I feel desperate to sleep so I take them. Alcohol before bedtime makes my RLS worse but in the middle of the night it lets me sleep.
I am going to meet with my doctor in two days. I want to have a better medication regime but I don’t want to increase the tramadol. It makes me itchy (a common side effect to opiates). I don’t know if a different opioid would make me less itchy. Does anyone have experience with that? I worry that maybe I am augmenting on tramadol and a different opioid would be a better choice. I take zyzol (antihistamine) every morning to control the itchy hives. It doesn’t seem to make my RLS worse. It’s a careful balance because being itchy all over all of the time is as horrible as RLS .
I would love to have some input from this community.
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Your post is a bit contradictory.Alcohol is a known trigger for RLS. It is contrary for opiates.
Antihistamines are generally bad for RLS, .
It's difficult to advise you under these circumstances.
Opiates do cause itchiness for a few weeks, but it does get better.
Tramadol can cause augmentation but it is incredibly rare. I would be inclined to address some of the above issues before giving up on your core medication.
It would be possible to change to buprenorphin or oxycodone to avoid the possible augmentation.
Thank you for your response!My experience is that drinking any alcohol in the evening (before my regular bedtime) does make my RLS worse. However, if I wake up in the middle of the night from RLS, I can have a small amount and it makes me fall asleep and does not make my RLS worse (as far as I am aware). I don’t know why this is true, I just know that it is my experience. I am not a regular or big drinker. I don’t want to drink at all but when one is desperate to sleep they will do whatever it takes. The amount of opiate and alcohol I take is not dangerous (in terms of suppressing respiration, etc).
For me, the itchiness from tramadol does not get better over time. I was on it for years, then got off it in preparation for getting off pramipexole two years ago. I’m now off pramipexole (that was really hard!) for many months and have transitioned to my current regime. It is hard to know for sure if I was augmenting on tramadol but I believe that I was.
The antihistamine I take does not aggravate my RLS ( some do and I avoid them like the plague) and I take it first thing in the morning. I virtually never have RLS during the daytime.
Maybe there is no answer to my question and I just have to try different things. I am hoping to hear from people who have been itchy with various opiates and whether there is a difference in which ones make you more or less itchy.
I can't comment on the itchiness but I have learnt something interesting recently. Pregabalin is used (illicitly) by some people to enhance the effects of other illicitly used drugs including opioids.I'm thinking this is part of the reason I haven't been able to take opioids, alcohol etc concurrently with pregabalin.
I note that 600mg is a very high dose of pregabalin. It may be that there are some interactions going on with the particular combination of meds you take.
I actually take 500mg pregabalin (600 was a typo). Cannabis alone is not enough to stop the RLS. I also don’t like feeling “high”. I tried a few strains until I found one that relaxes me and helps me fall asleep without making me feel high, have weird dreams, etc. I have tried edibles and tinctures and vaping seems to work the best without the unwanted other effects. I have also tried CBD oil and it had zero effect on me.
Hi I too take Tramadol and experience itchiness. It has lessened over time but it is still there after several years.I find that if I don't focus on it as a problem it doesn't bother me as much if you see what I mean.I have tinnitus too and the same approach works for that. For me the benefits of sleep outweigh the side effects .Good luck.
That’s interesting. I used to take Tramadol and during that time my scalp was incredibly itchy and I even developed what looked like psoriasis on it. Since coming off Tramadol I no longer have any issues. Thinking about it now, my scalp problems stopped exactly at the time I stopped Tramadol. I never thought there was a link until reading your post.
Tramadol does cause augmentation, it’s not rare as it’s being increasingly reported. In fact it’s left my RLS permanently worse than it was before taking it, originally for sciatica. I didn’t realise what had happened until I started to wean off it and two years on things are just as bad. There was a GP on here a while back who had experienced the same sort of thing and she thought Tramadol had possibly permanently altered the receptors in her brain. I only had mild RLS before taking it.
First of all, are you sure you have RLS.? All the medications you mention are contradictory for RLS. ALCOHOL is probably the WORST thing to drink for RLS, I have a very social life, even with this pandemic, and I certainly love my cocktails, but when I drink I know I’ll be in trouble when I go to bed because the RLS seems to be stronger and even my Tramadol doesn’t do the job for a couple of hours, even if I take more, it still will be a while for symptoms to subside. As for the tramadol, I take 100 mg divided in two 50 mg pills that I take regularly, one at 5:30pm and the other at 10 pm. I have been on this regime going on 11 years with NO AUGMENTATION. Tramadol is probably the safest opiate to use since it’s the less likely to produce augmentation and though it can make you itchy at first like ALL opiates, it will subside. Another thing you mention is that you take antihistamines, WHAT? That’s another very bad drug to take with RLS, there are non drowsy antihistamines on the market that do the job and won’t stir up the RLS. Have you been positively diagnosed with RLS? You just don’t fit the bill and if you do have RLS, you’re definitely taking all the wrong meds. Good luck, I hope you find a much better regime to be on, there’s too much in your system to tell what’s going on. I really question your use of alcohol, specially in the middle of the night, or at what ever time during the night, you see, I was an alcoholic and a 2am drink was just great fir any reason. Sorry if I’m being a bit too hard, but you need to open your eyes as to what’s really going on with you. Drugs, alcohol, antihistamines, seems like a cocktail for liver problems.
I definitely have RLS. Diagnosed and treated by a leading RLS specialist and researcher in the US. I’ve had it for over 16 years. I was on pramipexole for years (14) but finally the augmentation got so bad that I had to transition off of it. The pregabalin, etc that I take are way better than nothing but they don’t help my RLS as totally as the pramipexole used to. I know that antihistamines can make RLS much worse - and if I took Benadryl I would not get a minute of sleep no matter what else I took. I take a non- drowsy antihistamine in the morning and it does NOT make my RLS worse. If tested it out many times.
I don’t know why alcohol helps me in the middle of the night but it does. Again, if I have a glass of wine with dinner my RLS is much worse that night. It doesn’t make sense but it is what my body experiences.
I do not have an alcohol addiction. If I didn’t take it to stop the RLS some nights I could easily not drink for weeks at a time. I don’t drink to get drunk or to excess. I don’t like to take the tramadol but it does help the pregabalin work.
I don’t want to get attacked for my regime. I was asking about people’s experience with itching from tramadol and other opioids.
That is what I wanted information about, not your judgment of me based on your own experience with alcoholism.
I’ve had RLS for 30 plus years and the last 10 I’ve been on 200 mg of Tramodol with great results. The hardest part was finding a doctor to give it to you. It’s considered an opioid and a lot of doctors stay away . Good luck
Thank you for your response!I currently take 50mg tramadol at bedtime. If I take more than that it makes me so itchy that the non-drowsy antihistamine that I take now the morning cannot handle it. That is why I am wondering if a different opioid would make me less itchy.
I take Targin 10/5mg and lyrics 75mg twice a day I do not know which one does it but have mild itchy ness special on the head only if my RLS is very bad I take a tremadole 50 mg
I'm in the US and agree that it's VERY difficult to find a doctor willing to prescribe opiates for RLS. I finally found one, but his office is 250 miles away; I'm required to see him once every 6 months. No meds helped my symptoms until he prescribed me LOW-DOSE methadone (5 mg, twice daily). That changed my life and now I'm able to sleep 8 hrs a day, no problem.
I do have itching in my ankles, but ONLY at bedtime, and not severe enough to be a real bother. I'm not even sure that it's actually related to the methadone, as I think it started before I began taking the methadone. Have you tried anti-itching meds?
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