Ultram has huge withdrawal side effects especially if you have been taking over a prolonged period of time. It is critical you get off the medication very slowly because seizures or suicide attempts can happen if withrawal is too fast. It has opioid typical withdrawal sympoms (abdominal cramps,anxiety,bonepain,depression,insomni a,lacrimation,restlessness,sweating)as well as "atypical" antidepressant drug type symptoms-severe anxiety-panic attacks, unusual cns symptoms like confusion,delusions,derealization,paranoia and unusual sensory phenomenon like numbness,tingling,ringing in the ears, hallucinations. You can have one or many of these withdrawal symptoms.
I took it over 8 yrs and the last 3 yrs at maximum dosage while awaiting a knee replacement. I found an expert in this medication and other ssri's who told me it would take at least a year to safely get off this medication. I tried to taper off it over a week time and all of a sudden started to think of how I could kill myself. It is dangerous but the drug company lies about the withdrawal effects. There is a study online that is from the journal of pharmacolog. Exp. Ther. 260, pgs 275-285 that reports these withdrawal symptoms and the journal of clinical psychiatry from 1997 vol 58 suppl.7 pages 11-15 also talks about the antidepressant discontinuation syndrome. Ultram is both a synthetic opioid and a seratonergic inhibiting drug. Put "dr. Ann blake tracy" in the google search engine and the method of getting off ultram is the same as for prozac. Good luck.