Tramadol severely affecting bg's

[sjm1308]

Help! I had a nasty fall which ended up with me having surgery and pins to my elbow. In hospital I was on longtec 10mg twice a day and shortec 5mg 2-4 times. I was discharged then on cocodamol 30/500s.

Pain was fine until I started physio. My injury means movement is severely restricted so I have to push hard at physio. The pain then was so bad my gp put me on tramadol sr twice a day.

Since starting the tramadol I am hypoing non stop. I've reduced my background Levimer from 18u twice daily to 10u twice daily.

Thing is its really helping my pain. I'm going to have a very long recovery period of 9-12months. They have said I may not be able to return to work as I might not get full function of my arm back.

Sorry for this rambling post I guess I want to know why is tramadol doing this? Should I just keep going with reduced insulin and minimal pain or is it too risky?

I was due to start pump therapy in Sept but postponed due to the surgery etc. I'm now getting it in dec.

Thank you

 

[Antje77]

Hi @sjm1308 ,
I've used tramadol for a couple of days 2 months ago and didn't notice an effect on my bg.
But I just did a quick Google search on "tramadol hypoglycemia", which gave quite a lot of recent hits. It seems that this has been studied, both in diabetics and non diabetics.

Have you spoken with your HCP about this?

Wish you all the best with your recovery!

 

[sjm1308]

I havnt yet, I just started on them on Tues and only yesterday put 2 and 2 together to work out the tramadol was causing the lows. I'll def ring my gp and dsn on monday. Thank you

Hi @sjm1308 ,
I've used tramadol for a couple of days 2 months ago and didn't notice an effect on my bg.
But I just did a quick Google search on "tramadol hypoglycemia", which gave quite a lot of recent hits. It seems that this has been studied, both in diabetics and non diabetics.

Have you spoken with your HCP about this?

Wish you all the best with your recovery!