Posted by jerimycoplo on June 17, 2005, at 0:22:10
Hi , I really need some help on this one. A friend of mine was shot in the lower back in Vietnam and therefore has metall hardware as part of his spine and this causes tremenduous pain. He has been prescibed Ultram (tramadol) and it really is the only thing that helps with his pain. The only other option is implanting an electric shock stimulator in his spine to dull the pain.
The question goes as follows. Due to his job in the medical industry he get random drug tests and recently (ever since he got on ultram), he tests positive for opiates!?! I am 100% positive that he does not take anyhing except ultram. Could ultram be causing a false positive for opiates in anyones opinion? I have looked up and down the net and I know it somewhat acts like an opiate so I could see how that would happen but it still makes little sense to me that the people at his work would not be aware that his legal ultram prescription could be causing this positive? After all the metabolites of Ultram are not the same of those of morphine or other opiates from what I read. It does not make much sense to me.
Any advice, references, links , personal stories would be very helpfulThanks alot
jc
poster:jerimycoplo
thread:514148
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050611/msgs/514148.html