pain
"Before my recent l4-l5-s1 fusion I was on Tramadol for almost 2 years.  3, 50mg tabs a day was adequate, just enough to dull the pain without dopiness.  After my surgery I was changed to Hydrocodone 5/325, 4x daily.  After a month of that I was feeling miserable with mediocre pain relief.  On a really bad day I decided to switch back to Tramadol.  Wow!  Almost instant pain relief and a huge boost in my mood.  Tramadol is a strong anti-depressant versus the downer effect I got from Hydrocodone.  Couldn't be happier!  Only "bad" side effect for me is a little impatience sometimes that is easy to control.  For what its worth the Doc says I'm the exception to the rule.  It's hard to predict how this drug will affect a particular person so go slow at first."