Not many people take Canadians very seriously. After all, they are best known for their Mounties - strangely dressed police officers who claim always to "get their man" - and their ice hockey teams' willingness to lose gracefully to US opposition. Fortunately, they are blessed with a good sense of humor and tolerate the gentle fun poked at them. But, like people everywhere, they also get injured and fall sick. Their interests are protected by a federal body called the Therapeutic Products Directorate (TPD). Essentially, this is the same as the FDA on drugs and medical devices. There's a separate organization to safeguard the public on food. The TPD licenses the sale of all products used as treatments. These decisions are "evidence-driven", i.e. all manufacturers have to run clinical trials to collect evidence that their product is safe and does what it's supposed to do with only a few mild side effects.
Until recently, the TPD only licensed the use of a once-daily version of tramadol for moderate pain. Conventional wisdom said that the level of relief tapered off too much as the day went by and the concentration of the drug in the blood stream reduced. But, as a result of new evidence submitted by Biovail Corp, the company that manufactures and distributes tramadol north of the border, the TPD has now extended the license to allow its use for the relief of more severe pain. Biovale has run five trials. The first four were standard randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials lasting 12 weeks with about 3,000 participants in total. The fifth trial ran for fifty-eight weeks. All the participants suffered persistent moderate to severe pain caused either by osteoarthritis of the knee joint or by hip and lower back conditions.
The results demonstrated tramadol's consistent ability to reduce the level of pain. All those taking the active drug reported a steady drop in the intensity of the pain over the first month. Once the level of tramadol stabilized in the blood stream, the general sense of relief continued through the period of each trial. The most commonly reported improvement in the quality of life was the ability to get an uninterrupted night's sleep. With chronic pain, it can be difficult to get to sleep and, as drug levels fall over night, the pain can wake the sleeper. If a pattern of insomnia is established, this can start people down the slippery slope of depression which always seems to make the pain "feel" worse. All the participants felt better rested and their moods improved as the pain came under control. Even more impressive where the results from the longer fifth trial which showed the pain relief did not fall away as people became more tolerant of the drug.
With the once-daily version now approved in Canada, attention now turns to the FDA to see whether it will also license its use in the US. Until then, you can buy tramadol online at really low prices. This gives you safe pain relief at prices you really can afford, improving the quality of life and lifting your mood for a better tomorrow. Cheap tramadol really is a lifesaver in both the emotional and physical sense.
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