hello all,
wondering if others have noticed little to no pain relief upon taking codeine or tramadol?
a mutation in the P450 (enzymes in the liver that process many of our drugs) CYP2D6 could be the culprit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP2D6the doctors gave me tylenol with codeine when i was in my early 20s (hand slammed in car door). did nothing (and i mean nothing) for the pain, but did knock me out. i was young and naive regarding drugs back then, thought everyone had same response. thought its "pain relieving" effects were just that it knocked you out. but then a few years later, saw my sister entertaining friends the night after her wisdom teeth were out while on codeine and i thought that was odd. turns out i'm the one that had the odd response. it was several years later that i was reading about this enzyme and how polymorphisms in the encoding gene is actually very common (up to 10% of the population). so i've suspected for years that i have this problem.
now reading that this P450 also the enzyme that metabolizes tramadol. interesting, as that was the only drug doctors would consider giving me a script for when i was in severe pain. decided to fill the LDN script instead as both given to me on same day by same doc and can't take both. good thing i didn't try using the tramadol, probably wouldn't have worked anyway, considering that the codeine did nothing for me.
anyway, if you have had little to no response on codeine or tramadol, you may want to let the doctors know. you may have a mutation in your CYP2D6 and need a different pain reliever. too bad, as the tramadol is supposed to be a less addictive drug, but hey, if it doesn't work, what's the point?
