Hi susie,I've been on gabapentin and tramadol for 17 years or more as you know,I used to be on 3600mg gabapentin and 400mg slow release tramadol daily, I have reduced so many times,to much and suffered to little and got impatient , when I arrived in Germany reduced my gabapentin to 2100mg(gradually in hospital) and tramadol to 200mg then I had one year later a spinal cord stimulator implanted and a battery in my bum cheek , this was to take over from the meds so I reduced again to 1800mg gabapentin and 100mg tramadol, now let me say this and it happens to everyone and anyone that has the internet,you read that tramadol is the devil , gabapentin is so addictive etc etc,well I read and reduced and suffered all because of people that dont think before they write that others might actually need these drugs and they are lucky they dont,so as from last week my tramadol is 150mg and gabapentin 2400mg this is because my nerve pain is so severe and I need these to live as near normal life as I can ,yes I lay down all day , walk 1hr, sit 25 mins,stand 30 mins only but as I lay here relaxed and comfortable I can say that gabapentin especially has saved my life, side affects are at the beggining not nice , lafargic, dry month, generally unhappy, but as time went by my body got used to it , I go to bed at 12 and I'm up at 4am and sleep for 30 mins in the afternoon (became the norm for me), I have a great life , yes I want to work, sit in a restaurant with my wife and yes I moan now and again I'm only human ,so the moral of this story is if you need medication to be comfortable then take it, find what level suits you, ignore the idiots that dont think of others, always talk to your doctor, partner, friends anyone who will listen as I have found that I feel much better talking than bottling it up,susie I hope your side affects soon fade and they will just be patient ,a life of medication, side affects only at the beggining or nerve pain and as you know it is truly horrible and depressing illness, no brainer,feel free to chat whenever and have a nice bank holiday even if you do sleep most of it
Hi Dave, you are a life saver! Because of your positive comments I am going to give gabapentin a chance!!! I was already to started weaning off yesterday and if I had read anymore down hearted reviews I would have for sure. I have spinal cord damage from a taxi accident in the old days when u didnt need a seat belt. You know the old fashioned black taxi. Went straight through th windscreen 12 years ago now but it has left me with cervical myelopathy. I had nuro surgery to stop total paralysis which was a success. Well that is the good bit............ but the nerve damage of my neck damage had already been done and progressed over the time it took for them to find out what the problem was??????? It was pioneering surgery then yeeeeeeh! But I regained the feeling in my arms and hands.
The nerve pain is terrible but I have been in denial that I ever had it!!!!! duh! As I did not believe that pain could travel from the spinal cord from my cord in neck area to ribs, collar bones, hands, legs feet and so on and on.
So now I have accepted/believed the consultants that this is the treatment for me. BUT DAVE!!!!! there should be more positive posts surely? I have felt better today because of you, feel groggy now so excuse the mistakes, but felt great this morning for the first time in ages. Yes I am enjoying my bank holiday and hope you are too. No rain here! Thanks again.
Susie.
Hi,
I now take pregabalin as a diff. dr thought it had a better side effect profile than gabapentin, I was on 1800 mg a day of gabapentin for a few years, for peripheral nerve pain stemming from 3 prolapsed discs in my lower spine. It was like a magic bullet once I was over the initial side effects, which took 4-6 months to be honest. after 6-12 months of it being great though I noticed side effects with my concentration, similar to EAD in film Still Alice, losing words, forgetting names and what I am talking about mid sentence....it got no better swappng to pregabalin either, if anything I have got worse., I was well educated, 2i in Pharmacology 20 years ago at Uni, but I am left trying to discontinue pregabalin very SLOWLY now, as side effects coming off either of these can be horrendous, so if you do come off take it slow, very slow !! Speak to dr / pain clinic who put you on these, when I first reported this side effect and effects on my short term memory my dr dismissed them, but I found info online in USA where they talk more openly about problems with meds - I was right all along, now I don't know if I will ever get my congnitive function back or not. No one knows !!
Many of us aren't "flipping out" over one instance of side effects. I've been taking it for 7 months, had horrible side effects the entire time and absolutely no relief as far as the pain is concerned. In fact, my back, hip and leg pain have gotten much worse. I am in agony all day every day and on top of it, I am nauseous, dizzy, falling over, can't read or do anything I have to focus on and feel like I am straight losing my mind. I keep getting told to "give it time" and "take Tylenol" and want to scream "I have given it plenty of time and if Tylenol helped I never would have had to come to you in the first place!"
Maybe you are taking too much. I was told that when I started having numbness on my face and neck. It was the start of my 6th day. I stopped the medicine. It maybe me so irritable and not sociable. Anything I heard I was ready to contradict it. I did not feel myself. The pain behind my head was horrible and the body aches. I started to have slurred speech and my thoughts were not in order. I wanted to say something but couldn't remember the name of thing so common.I still have the numbness on my face. Yeah it helped with the pain but made me so confused.
Hi Adam you might not pick this up as the post was a while back, but how long was it until you felt any better? I've been on gabapentin and I feel awful, very depressed, it's living hell. Like I'm dragging myself around everywhere, not enjoying anything. I am being weaned off from 900 to 300mg a day then but today I've had none because I want to feel better sooner :-(
How bad would the pain be without the medication? I take 1800mg of Gabapentin and 299 mg of extended release Tramadol. I still have pain. So what would it be like without the meds. I am in a bit of a fog but manage ok. I record what I have done as I do forget. My appetite is normal and I have not put on any weight. As you say the decision whether to take meds is for the individual and reactions vary. I took one Temazepam last week and woke up thinking I was dying. My life is definitely better with what I have!
that should read 200mg
Hi Martin,i was on 3600mg gabapentin and 400 slow release tramadol daily for over 15 years for nerve damage in both legs ,i moved to germany and they put in a Medtronic spinal stimulator and with that slowly over the next 2 years I reduce to 1800mg gabapentin and 100mg tramadol daily,the spinal stim didn't work and must come out soon but because I thought it had it have me the courage and incentive to reduce which wasn't easy,i have lately tried again to reduce but found that what I'm on now is what I need,for bad days I take tramadol drops as one pump (squirt in my tongue) is only 12.5mg fast acting tramadol so that's fine and I take as many or as less as needed,because when you start on gabapentin the drs increase it rapidly you start to wonder over time "is this really the high dose I need or what ", but by then you've been on it for a while and its hard to reduce and we all want to reduce quickly as my wife will tell you 😃 but try 100mg a day as in 600mg..600mg and then night time 500mg ,1st of every month (it helps to look forward to a date as a goal) change again, take 100mg off the lunchtime untill you feel happy and if not put the 100mg back on and start again another time,i found that tramadol is the hardest to reduce but actually the best drug for my pain as I lay down all day every day and sit,stand walk hurts.ask the Dr about maybe reducing the gabapentin slowly but having the tramadol drops as a back up (safety net),the key is time and people on high doses like us have time so do it slowly,regardless of how or what you do I wish you well .😊
Thanks Dave
i may be moving on to Targinact and was wondering about the switchover process
I ran across your post from a couple of months ago when you said you had stopped taking the gabapentin. If you don't mind, I'd be curious to know about your success in getting off of it permanently. Thanks.
My pain is in the legs and feet. In reading about your problems, it made mine seem minimal. But pain is pain. i'm sorry about your husband. I'm single, but my sister and I can't even be together anymore. She just won't accept that I'm in pain. I bring the subject up and immediately regret saying anything. It's just something that we have to somehow keep to ourselves.
Hi Anne,
I know how you feel to feel like you are on the scrap heap, I am now 42 and 9 years ago ending up giving up a great career in the pharmaceutical industry due to 3 prolapsed discs in my lower spine. I too live on morphine, slow release caps twice a day, and oral solution to top up with as necessary. Also, naproxen, sertraline for depression, zoton a PPI to counteract the problems that the sertraline and naproxen will cause to my stomach, baclofen ( muslce relaxant ) ...there have been more over the years, but I sacked off the gabapentin and pregabalin after over 5 years of taking them they have done a super job of affecting my cognition, language centre of brain and short term memory...and not for the better ! So when the nerve pain is bad I have to tolerate it ! ( couldn;t stand the thought of turning into alzehimers patient on top of everything else )...also now take Naloxegol a PAMORA for opiod-induced constipation, as with a history of IBS and the morphine I was suffering with my stomach and intestines very badly. I know the tiredness, and the lack of sleep only too well. ! I have my mum-in-law who's nearly 70 help me clean my house every week ! as my husband works full time and have two teenagers. I too have had steroid injections, but they will not operate on me !
It's a shame you have lost your support at home, I find it vital so very often. Good luck x and take care
Hi Robin. I see your post is an old one so this may not reach you.
I'm weaning myself off Gabapentin and am down from 1500mgs to 600mgs which I take morning and evening.
I am crying all the time and feel totally worthless.I was awake for 3 hors last night crying too. I'm also pre menopausal so am struggling to know if it's hormones , Gabapentin or both (sorry if u are a man to be mentioning that)
I am under the impression that you can't take Magnesium when on Gabapentin so would be interested to hear how it affected you. I have some but am not sure if I should take it or when in the day to take it. Would be helpful to hear any feedback . Thanks
I was on Gabapentin and got so tired of the weird feeling I went cold turkey. About 3 days later, I couldn't move my legs to walk.I ended up in the hospital. So whatever you do, don't go cold turkey.
I feel you i been on it fora few weeksand im feel like azombiei havebad anxiety dizzy tired blah weird feeling depressed i stopped it cold turkey and ended up in the er with a high heart rate makes me nausea a pee alot im. Going to mydr to put me back on lyrica not tomention i still have the nerve pain
You can go to sauna and steam
Visit chiropractic doctor, not under NHS
Have an MRI scan done
Stretching exercises regularly
Can also have cupping done- work wonders eventually
Best wishes
Hi Adam, Pregabalin causes an inflammatory response and thus we suffer general inflammation all over the body and a normal diet with sugar and carbohydrates keeps the body in this inflammatory state with all teh attendant pains and aches. I don't know whether the body can heal from this inflammation completely, i only know that dietary control is necessary. The inflammatory cells entered the healthy soft muscle tissue and caused cell death and all these dead cells cause pain and destruction in the body. I am now in my third week Lyrica free after 6 years of Lyrica 150 mg twice a day. Just know that your brain has no dependency on the drug, but your body's ability to use synapses for electrical firing has been destroyed and was replaced by inflammation that acts like making small fires in your body and burning cells for energy, if I can use this analogy. If you can heal yoru body's allergic response, you will be fine, if the inflammation continues to will remain allergic and will have to follow a dietary regime for ease and comfort. Doctors don't know how this drug works and loweing a dose incrementally keeps the allergy and inflammation on high and makes life hell. Thus getting off it requiries halving and stopping completely. Every time you take Gaba abd Lyrica, teh allergy inflammtion response is triggered and your body will remain sick. kind regards, Marilese Koch.
Hey I know it's been along time since this post but are you still in Gabapentin?
Is there a natural source
I found the gabapentin caused me more pelvic pain!