Your Experience With Neurontin/Gabapentin For Pain

[+ Lucky]

Gabapentin, generic for Neurontin and similar to Lyrica, is a drug for nerve pain. Many years ago I tried it for several months until the side effects almost drove me crazy. Brain fog was the most intense one. I have only known one person who stayed with the drug after trying it out. A doctor friend says that he has had no patients stick with it over the long term,

Yet it remains widely available and I am curious if anyone here has experience with this drug. Please share!

[+ nycman]

It’s pretty much worthless.

 

Just seems to make people so tired and confused that they don’t complain about the pain as much.

[jjkrkwood]

I was given Gabapentin AFTER my back surgery in 2019, to ease and speed nerve damage done in my legs from my back problem... First I took it 3 times a day and then last year it was reduced to twice a day, and just last month I stopped it when my RX ran out..... It might have helped, I'm not sure, cant tell if it was simply just the healing process that reduced the nerve pain ? Nonetheless, I had NO side effects from taking it, and I was taking it in combo with 7 other meds for various other things. .

[+ Orin]

Deb, who has Fibromyalgia, has taken it for pain for years, and is miserable if she misses her dose.

I was prescribed some for nerve pain after my Saab got wrecked, and I could not straighten out or put any weight on one leg due to sciatica. There were some left after I recovered, and when I took one out of curiosity, I found it had perceptual effects. My brain stopped processing the images into 3D and I had two flat images that overlapped on what I focussed on. I also slept really well.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Orin

[+ db66]

I took gabapentin for several months in 2017 to treat post-herpetic neuralgia (nerve pain associated with shingles). It reduced the pain though didn’t eliminate it, even at max dose. I didn’t notice any side effects.

 

Public Service Announcement: get your shingles vaccine!!

[thickornotatall]

I take 150 mg of generic Lyrica at night...It has stopped most of the leg and foot pain at night...It also helped with restless leg syndrome which drove me crazy....I have zero problems during the day..night time is awful....trying to relax and stay in bed was a struggle without Lyrica..

Edited May 11, 2021 by thickornotatall

[Guest]

Doesn't work for everyone. Works for some. Worth a try. Unlike most other meds for pain, safe for long-term use, won't risk your kidneys, liver, and so on. Tolerance and withdrawal are not problems with this.

[+ Lucky]

I take 150 mg of generic Lyricaat night...It has stopped most of the leg and foot pain at night...It also helped with restless leg syndrome which drove me crazy....I have zero problems during the day,,night time is awful....trying to relax and stay in bed was a struggle without Lyrica..

I use Requip for RLS. It's a miracle drug!

[+ db66]

Doesn't work for everyone. Works for some. Worth a try. Unlike most other meds for pain, safe for long-term use, won't risk your kidneys, liver, and so on. Tolerance and withdrawal are not problems with this.

This was my physician’s view. The gabapentin didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, and I wanted something more effective, but he wouldn’t prescribe stronger meds because of the side effects. Ultimately I survived and he was probably right, but I was not happy with him at the time.

[Best Kisser]

I have been on it for years 400 3 times a day for diabetic neuropathies and have absolutely no problem with it.

[+ FreshFluff]

Physicians like anti-convulsants because they’re opioid sparing, but I found gabapentin useless no matter how I took it (QD vs TID). It was extremely sedating, and I once passed out while on it.

 

Ultimately, only a steroid injection worked.

Edited May 12, 2021 by FreshFluff

[+ purplekow]

As with almost all drugs I have prescribed, it works well sometimes and other times not so much. It is safe but the sedating side effects in particular can be bothersome, but if taken at night it will help with sleep. Side effects usually lessen with time but many people grow impatient with the drug. The same sedating effect is present with opiates and as a result there is not really much reason not to try it first for neuropathic pain, especially in diabetes. Lots of patients complain about the side effects because they want narcotics. An "allergy". to gabapentin is a big tip toward a drug seeker, especially is accompanied by "allergies" to other non-opiate pain medication.

[Mjonis]

I had two schannomas on my brachial plexus. Extremely painful.

Gabapentin worked, but it's a total PITA as you have to titre up to find the level that works. And it takes time (took 6 weeks before it started working for me). And you can't just "stop it".

 

I originally had the "dizziness" and tiredness and that was the only side effects until about 3 months in I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was having a heart attack. Heart was skipping beats. After 3 ER visits they ruled out any heart issues and just said they were PVC/PAC (palpitations) and turned out the gabapentin was the culprit (rare, but it happens).

 

Of course, took a month to titre off of it (so hardly any sleeping due to the skips) for a month.

I then scheduled surgery to remove the tumors. Post op pain wasn't bad (nerve pain wise) until I started the 9 months of PT. Then it really irritated the nerve again. At that point went on Lyrica (did help me sleep) and it worked quite well (fairly low dose), but 2 months into it I got double-vision. Thank God I wasn't driving at the time I would've wrecked out and/or hurt someone else. Immediately had to stop it. Went on Percocet after that. No issues with addiction for me anyway.

 

But everyone is different. Typically they try gabapentin first as it's cheaper, then Lyrica. If that fails, they usually switch to tri-cyclic anti-depressants, and you cant' get opoids around here to save your life. "Just take tylenol and ibuprofen". The TCA have issues as well (typically takes 2 weeks for them to kick in and you have to take them every day and can't just stop them, not to mention the side effects).