Opioids Tapentadol Megathread

[ghostfreak]

OP: "Hi all, just acquired some Tapentadol and wondered what it was like in not therapeutic doses? Got 100mg orange tablets.

I’ve tried Tramadol for pain but replaced with this and wondered if there was any experiences with Tapentadol?"

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Dosage Info from Psychonautwiki.org




Tapentadol has an oral bioavailability of about 32%. Tapentadol is metabolized by the Cytochrome P450 system in the liver and is excreted by the kidneys in urine as well as in feces. Unlike most opioids, tapentadol is also a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor and also has weak serotonergic effects as well.

Tapentadol is an orally available, synthetic benzenoid that acts as an agonist for the mu-opioid receptor (MOR) and inhibits the reuptake of noradrenaline, with potential anti-nociceptive activity. Upon oral administration, tapentadol binds to the MOR which enhances MOR-mediated signaling, interferes with the sensation of pain and results in an analgesic effect. Tapentadol also inhibits the reuptake of noradrenaline, which increases the levels of noradrenaline (NA), activates the inhibitory alpha-2 receptors and results in an analgesic effect.

Tapentadol and its metabolites are excreted almost exclusively (99%) via the kidneys. Approximately 70% (55% O-glucuronide and 15% sulfate of tapentadol) is excreted in conjugated form. A total of 3% of drug was excreted in urine as unchanged drug.

- @deficiT 9/22

It is similar to tramadol in its dual mechanism of action; namely, its ability to activate the mu opioid receptor and inhibit the reuptake of norepinephrine.

Unlike tramadol, it has only weak effects on the reuptake of serotonin and is a significantly more potent opioid with no known active metabolites.

Tapentadol is not a pro-drug and therefore does not rely on metabolism to produce its therapeutic effects; this makes it a useful moderate-potency analgesic option for patients who do not respond adequately to more commonly used opioids due to genetic disposition (poor metabolizers of CYP3A4and CYP2D6), as well as providing a more consistent dosage-response range among the patient population.

The potency of tapentadol is somewhere between that of tramadol and morphine, with an analgesic efficacy comparable to that of oxycodone despite a lower incidence of side effects.

 

[Brabraann]

Tapentadol feels maybe 75% as warm, buzzy as oxycodone…it’s so much stronger than Tramadol though. Have only ever used at a 75mg dose however - it’s costly

 

[deficiT]

Put more info into OP and added thread to directory.

 

[ghostfreak]

Put more info into OP and added thread to directory.

Thank you

 

[lolis my thesis]

I would abuse the crap out of my Nucynta; as I was prescribed it for years for breakthru pain; no matter my methadone dose, it would definitely get me pretty dang high.
Although it was speedy, 2x75 would have me in a dreamlike state; like I would be talking and forget my train of thought and continue talking on some tangent and basically nod out for a second.
Unlike norco which is what I take now; it works better than the tapentadol on pain; but doesn't really get me very much of a high over my methadone dose.
Interestly, Kratom also works while on methadone; better than regular hydrocodone or oxycodone.
I had to quit the tapentadol because it was pricey but more because it made me fiend on it; I would take it all up in a week to ten days.
Nobody at the pharmacy or people in general knew what the heck it even was; it was so novel of a drug.
Tramadol does not work like this one on top of methadone; it must just be that much weaker; says me the tweaker

 

[tarman]

so I have a fairly decent tolerance but I've actually been very much not partaking in any opioids lately and I was wondering what dose of tapentadol to start with? I took a hundred Mg, but it's been an hour and I don't feel shit. I'm usually not one to press the issue but I don't feel a damn thing. maybe I might feel something but I really don't think that it's kicked in yet. I'm going to give it a little more time before I actually can feel it, and maybe I might be feeling something right now but it's so vague and weak that I'm about ready to pop a second hundred mig pill. but I'll give it a little more time. I had to laugh when I saw it was made in India, they don't exactly have the highest quality control and I am no racist or prejudiced person, I actually love Indian cultures (and there are many) and have studied the country extensively.

 

[lolis my thesis]

I used to binge my rx every month; worked very well with methadone, for getting high anyway, hydrocodone is not as effective. Anyway; yellow coated pills were always like tramadol on steroids for me; with powerful dissassociative/dreamlike state which would have me nodding off mid sentence and then waking up and trying to act like I knew what I was talking about. Very trippy and I would get this way after three 75mg pills. But I would definitely feel 150 mg strongly. I almost want to get back on them but they kinda scare me with speedy like side effects. And moreish like fiending on them. My rationale was that I only took them one week per month/ so I wouldn't get physically dependent on yet another substance.
But I abused them, and have decided I don't want to get back on them; they didn't do too much for pain. Methadone and vicodin = much better pain control.

 

[tarman]

So i took it Sunday night and 400 mg yesterday. taken 100mg earlier this morning. my question is when can i take some hydrocodone? 8 hours after last tap dose?

 

[tarman]

Well fuck it, after googling the hell out of it, it seems hydrocodone is ok to take with it. so i took 10 migs about an hour ago (which was probably 2 to 3 hours after my last tapentadol dose i feel better. Like people say, tapentadol has a dirty feeling to it. I quite liked it when I tried it Sunday night. but as I continued to take 100 mg every 4 to 6 hours yesterday, I realized it felt really weird. I don't want to call it anxiety because it's definitely a separate, distinct state of mild anxiety. This is almost certainly attributable to the norepinephrine reuptake inhibition. And it wasn't quite that I didn't like it, I just really didn't want to take it for any extended period of time. But it does have a weird feeling to it.

 

[lolis my thesis]

Weird for sure; it felt like a speedy; dreamy; legs weak, spun monkey, dissociative like haze. Two 75mgs/day along with 40mgs methadone felt great; but I fiended on it thinking if I continued at 75mgs twice a day, then I would be physically dependent on another beast completely.

So instead, I took like 6-8 pills/day, and it fucked me up pretty intensely, but I avoided any serious SNRI or other type of withdrawal after just a week or so. Weird that it worked super well on methadone; while on a higher amount of 60mgs of methadone; I had to take 50mgs of hydrocodone to even feel it. So that seemed too dangerous to chase; I lowered my methadone to 30-40mgs per day and now 20mgs of hydrocodone breaks thru that and gives me a warm blanket buzz; nothing extraordinary, but like you say, the nucynta feels dirty. So does ultram, which seems useless when on methadone, but nucynta is like ultram/tramadol on steroids.

But on another note; I switched from lyrica to gabapentin; and I used to think gabapentin was useless; after a decade on expensive lyrica, I find that Gabapentin works better or at least as well; I didn't know that if I spaced my doses out by an hour or so it would also become effective. Lyrica was like gabapentin on steroids; but it also made me feel weird; kinda like weak MDMA, I would take 450mg at one time and would get chatty as heck; but it also made my math skills and word selection difficult; and also kinda dirty. Gabapentin is just as good, way cheaper, and doesn't effect cognition as much in my experience.
Live and learn; but when you see Pfizer ads on TV, well I paid for them!
Cuz I didn't know to stack Gabapentin doses for better effect. And they called it Lyrica for a reason; makes one wax lyrical, lol

 

[tarman]

How long after taking tapentadol can I take some gabapentin and baclofen? It's been 5 hours since my last 100 mg dose (3:30am). Before that I had 100 mg at 10:30pm. before that it was 200 mg at 5:30 pm, 200mg at noon, 30 migs vicodin at 8am yesterday. I had been alternating between Vicodin, 50 mg per day, and 400 or 500 mg tapentadol since Sunday. I don't feel awful right now but definitely want to get some relief.

 

[lolis my thesis]

I never worried about pregabalin intake when I was prescribed. I took 450mg, every day, never thought twice about it.
So I doubt it would make too much difference; maybe give you a more buzzed feeling. YMMV

 

[tarman]

Forewarning: rambling wall of text ahead:

Feeling a healthy unpleasant first stage of withdrawal really quickly after my last tap doae, I took 10migs baclofen, 500 mgs of gabapentin split between two doses spread out by at least an hour, and sippin Budweiser. It's weird how short term binge withdrawal differs from longer term withdrawal. I feel like short-term binge withdrawal has more of a warm unpleasant fuzzies feeling that's prominent in the 1st stage. i was cycling between hot and cold with mild sweating and my house is at 62 fuckin degrees (fahrenheit), doing some yawning, feeling emotional. and i said fuck it, i did like 3 migs of suboxone too, split between 2 doses. the reason I took that risk is because I really felt like my receptors were pretty empty. Now i got a good buzz, it's a little wobbly with the beer, baclofen, and gabas, but not unpleasant.

Overall, I'm not a big fan of the tapentadol at all. when I first tried it Sunday night, it was a really neat buzz and it was very different from all the different opiates I've tried before, and I've tried a wide array. also, the pills had a weird smell, almost like a flinty smell, it's tough to describe I want to say they smelled like strong dust, but not like lint from the dryer. they were made in India and they looked really cheap, with an orange coating that almost looked like candy. but anyway, the NRI aspect of it I'm sure is why it's an oddball.

But I figure that some people will definitely die from this drug because they will mix it with Adderall or meth or Coke or crack or I've heard people say the word pyros around here, but I have no fucking idea what those are. I I definitely felt like it was fucking with my heart just a little bit (sometimes, not all the time), but I also drink coffee and pedal my bike to work. I took the blood pressure checker at CVS and they definitely were not lowering my blood pressure, in fact my blood pressure was unaffected. I average 120 over 80 consistently, with little variations (I sit at the blood pressure checker thing at CVS and take like five readings in a row). Other opiates definitely lower my blood pressure (like to 110 over 70 or 100 over 70ish, in that range), but these taps don't. Maybe if I took a higher dose, but I was scared of NRI overload, so I only ever got up to 200 mg every 4 hours a few times. But I wouldn't say that the heart effects were super noticeable and when I upped my dose to 200 mg, it actually was relaxing. Again maybe the coffee and exercise were part of it. It was just a verrry subtle tightness, but like barely noticeable. No heart pounding, no overt symptoms other than a little weirdness in the chest, and only sometimes. Probably was the coffee, the barista lady I think is hooking me up with a little extra espresso, lol. Weird is the key word with this drug.

When the buzz starts to wane, these let you down kinda harshly. I felt a little stressed. the hydrocodone was a welcome change as I alternated between the two this week. but of course I can't drink when I take Vicodin so that kind of sucked.

Speaking of drinking, I drank plenty on these taps, and for all the warnings and other shit, it didn't really seem to have much of an impact. I drink regularly but I usually consume one 9.5% abv 12 oz beer, and then a few 5% piss beers after work. Alcohol went okay with these taps, but it definitely goes better with other opiates.

Sorry for the long winded wall of text, but I just wanted to share my experience for anybody who runs into these and is googling them.

They definitely feel like tramadol a little bit, but it is its own thing. I'm really fascinated by the NRI aspect and I wonder if I took these for like a month, what would happen when I cold turkeyed it? Would would all my adrenaline and epinephrine get uptook excessively and therefore i would be chilled out a little bit? I guess that's one aspect that's interesting to me, if withdrawal usually results in epinephrine and adrenaline and norepinephrine and whatever being released it, if you're coming off these taps abruptly, would it lower the effects of that aspect of withdrawal?
Now perhaps the the best thing about these taps is that they did not constipate me. I even ate rice!! Usually I'm scared as hell of rice. but I was shitting soft serve all week long and really was surprised. Again I'd love to know more about the biochemistry of tapentadol.
Overall, definitely fun to try. But as others have said, it's a dirty, odd buzz. Not unpleasant, but right on the edge of weirdness. I guess I wasn't really pushing the envelope, only doing like 100migs every 4 to 5 hours, then the last day doing 200migs a few times every 5 hours. I was worried about the NRI effect, but taking a higher dose, the mu receptor "wins" as it were, and it aint a bad weird ass buzz.

Anyway, in terms of harm reduction, for anyone who reads this, don't fuckin mix it with coke or speed. Maybe some people might get away with it, but I assume there is an equivalent norepinephrine syndrome just like serotonin syndrome. and I've got some really good yayo but there was no way in hell that I was going to risk it, even 12 hours after my last dose.

By the way, i know adrenaline and norepinephrine and epinephrine are all variations of the same thing (and yes 2 of those 3 might be the same molecule).

I might try em again some day. Like i said, that first night, 100 migs and some beer was pretty cool. I liked the airy, floaty feeling. It's really difficult to describe. You hear "norepinephrine" and think its gonna be racy but it's not racy and i dont think it is significantly blocking reuptake. I only say this because Im pretty sure the dentist gave me epinephrine once and i for sure felt the same thing as that, only much less so. But again, i didnt pop 400 migs or 1000 migs at a time.

By the way, baclofen and gabapentin i would say are awesome choices if you're trying to stay away from benzos or dont have access to benzos. You can feel a little dizzy, but it's definitely a relief, and it's definitely a cohesive synergy between the 2. Not as good as a benzo, but I'll be damned, it's a nice gabanergic experience to help calm your withdrawal symptoms.

I was scared to throw kratom in the mix with tapentadol, just because I came across some thread on the internet where a guy said it was unpleasant mixing the two.

Finally I will just say that I feel like tapentadol is metabolized quickly. and part of my proof is that I was able to take a sub like 9 hours after my last 100 mig dose and it was fine. If you are honest with yourself about your cows score, and can snip a nice small strip off the 8mig strip, if you feel shitty, then one mig of Suboxone is a great way to gauge whether it's going to help or not.

Alright I'm done, sorry for the book. Hope one day it serves someone well. Or they come in here and call bullshit on the warning about mixing yayo or speed with the taps. Maybe it's a great mix. I was too chickenshit to try. Be careful out there. You can always take more, but you can never take less once you've consumed it, if you takey meaning. When i get some h that is suspect, I always just try a few small particles, wait 10min with the naloxone nose thingy at the ready l, then try a little more. Okay im done rambling.

 

[lolis my thesis]

I parry your wall of text with a shielding blockade of my own; read at your own peril, ye of the few who actually have used tapentadol a good bit.

But first I must exclaim, "Gabapentin is a kickass drug!"
It has been making my benzo withdrawal pretty painless thus far, Lyrica too, but Lyrica is no longer covered by my insurance and gaba is and always has been free.
Gaba-drugs have certainly made benzo taper easy so far
Im down to .75mgs Kpin/day after years of 3mgs/day and have not had any problems yet; knock on wood.

Ive also found their subtle warm glow euphoria very nice; lyrica/pregabalin has been a staple in my diet for a decade; at a high cost in terms of money.
I thought Gabapentin was shit; but now when I have the choice; I take the Gabapentin over the lyrica.
I know because I am out of Gaba early and now have to bide my time until refill using leftover Lyrica.
I am a little bummed because of the high sticker shock of spending big bucks on brand named Lyrica when gabapentin works better and could have suited me just as good if not better all these years.
i feel like the brand named reps snowed/bribed my doctor and I probably blew 60k over a decade of the designer drug I just somehow felt I couldn't live without.
Gaba actually feels just as strong; as long as it is dosed correctly/spaced out; and it feels smoother on the body and easier on the mind than lyrica. Lyrica fucked my math skills and short term memory and Gabapentin does not seem to do this as badly.

Tramadol is another dirty high; but if it is a bit "dirty", then Nucynta is downright "filthy".

GreAT write up on Nucynta; I can't say it as eloquently as yourself, but it felt like playing with fire every month when I binged on it; like a heart attack waiting to happen
Dreamy yet speedy, weak in the knees, heart aflutter; I felt like my legs were rubber, and my heart weak on higher doses.
And the dissociative feel had me babbling like an idiot when a dreamlike nod would overtake me.
but The dirty feeling is not unlike the discomfort of taking a little too much cocaine and feeling like a heart attack waiting to happen!
Vicodin is buttery, nucynta is fluttery; glad I used it, abused it, and left it behind.

 

[ghostfreak]

I actually prefer Tapentadol to Tramadol for pain relief. That’s just me though.

 

[Forever Changes]

Been using Tapentadol for a while now. Started off with a 100mg and gradually increased the dose over time by using it daily so of course my tolerance started to increase ( ) and now I'm taking somewhere in the region of 1000mg at a time to feel the same effects. Also sometimes combine it with Soma (Carisoprodol)

When it works, Tapentadol is strange but I quite like it - it gives a sort of buzzy-type high. Sometimes when I stare at something like the carpet or the wall I could swear it looks like it's shifting and moving. However the duration doesn't usually last for long. And sometimes it doesn't have any effect at all which is frustrating. Also - a bit like with Benzos - I've found that it's made me do some strange shit that I have no memory of doing- like discovering that I've moved objects and put them in weird places during the night - so that's slightly alarming and something to be careful of. Anther side effect is it makes it difficult to urinate - After a Tapentadol session I find I'm standing over the toilet willing my bladder to empty as it trickles out....

I really need to abstain for a while to bring my tolerance down though. I obviously didn't learn from my Pregabalin expereince - with Preg I really enjoyed the buzz so I started using it daily and saw a rapid tolerance rise which eventually saw me taking insanely high doses to feel the same effect. Discipline! Discipline! Discipline!....why is it so hard? .

 

[lolis my thesis]

I can relate very well to your tapentadol description; from its spacy forgetfullness and buzzing high. Pretty singular experience hard to pinpoint its kinda like lyrica, kinda like benzos, kinda like tramadol.
Too bad its not as effective on pain or I would have stayed on it and don't know if I should bother my pain doc to try it again instead of hydrocodone.

Combined with methadone its very effective at being potent compared to hydrocodone when using them as breakthru pain medication..

 

[Forever Changes]

I can relate very well to your tapentadol description; from its spacy forgetfullness and buzzing high. Pretty singular experience hard to pinpoint its kinda like lyrica, kinda like benzos, kinda like tramadol.
Too bad its not as effective on pain or I would have stayed on it and don't know if I should bother my pain doc to try it again instead of hydrocodone.

Combined with methadone its very effective at being potent compared to hydrocodone when using them as breakthru pain medication..

What was your usual dose of Tapentadol?

 

[Fertile]

A few people on Opiophile sampled tapentadol. They all hated it. But I suspect they were dependent on classical full agonists.

Tapentadol is ALMOST an open-ring version of picenadol. I say 'almost' because tapentadol has a benzylic ethyl side-chain. If it was an N-propyl side-chain, it would be a full agonist rather than a mixed agonist.

Long ago I concluded that it's better to have short-acting opioids that give 'windows' of pain-relief for when you simply have to get stuff done. If you end up with a steady plasma state, your body becomes tolerant and the medicine stops working - but YOU end up with a habit.

So I AM curious about tapentadol.

 

[lolis my thesis]

I was taking 150mgs, 4 times per day. Never very effective on pain, but sure more effective at breaking thru methadone. But really more of a distracting high; pretty darned trippy and euphoric though; and fairly obscure so I am glad to have had it to try