On top of my experience shared here, Hurricane __________ (fill in current Greek name) is heading to Louisiana. So far, this is our ___th (fill in blank) named hurricane this 2020 season. Since we finally, after 25 years here without one, shelled out $900 for a generator, I am certain we will not have another power outage. We had 15 days powerless, so hence, the generator.
This is my personal experience taking the drug Gabapentin for over 8 years. I was originally prescribed the drug after a back surgery where the surgeon damaged my sciatic nerve (the reason for the surgery was that I had a tiny chipped bone, shown on the x-ray, pressing on the sciatic nerve causing severe pain...) .āSimple, 15 minute surgery,ā said the lying surgeon, āand your sciatic pain will be gone!ā I woke from the surgery with more serious sciatic pain AND ever since, my right leg and foot is numb. (I developed a limp which caused my left knee to go bad necessitating a total knee replacement. Two years on and the knee pain has never abated. Itās like Iām carrying a bowling ball in my knee). I never got the feeling back in my leg/foot although the surgeon insisted it was temporary.
The Neurontin (brand name) - Gabapentin (generic name) did help the burning nerve pain at first. Over time, the drug became less and less effective, but it helped me sleep. Nighttime is hell, when the pain is the worst, therefore the insomnia. Many times the doctor tried to drastically up my 600 mg per day dosage. Shockingly, the pharmaceutical companies recommended doses are 1500 to 5400 mg per day. The pills come in 100, 300, 400, 600 & 800 mg doses.
I thought, how hard can stopping Gabapentin/Neurontin be? It has a short half life, five to seven hours. It is not an opioid, narcotic or a benzodiazepine, right?
Gabapentin, an anticonvulsant, was originally used to treat ONLY two things: seizures and severe pain from shingles.
It is now, in 2020, being prescribed (off label) for bipolar disorder, neuropathic pain, diabetic neuropathy, complex regional pain syndrome, attention deficit disorder, restless leg syndrome, trigeminal neuralgia, periodic limb movement disorder of sleep, anxiety, depression, migraine, insomnia, drug and alcohol withdrawal. Gabapentin has become a ācatch-allā medication (Prescribe it for everything!!!!) due to the uncertainty around its exact mechanism of action. Still, despite the common practice, off-label prescribing presents deadly serious dangers to the millions of Americans taking these medications. I speak from experience.
According to an article in āThe New York Timesā in May, 2019, ā One of the most widely prescribed prescription drugs, gabapentin, is being taken by millions of patients despite little or no evidence that it can relieve their pain.ā
I seldom come across comments on patient forums stating people had no problems with Gapapentin/Neurontin. I didnāt think my problems were that terrible before I tried to go off the drug. All medications, of course, come with cautions and potential side effects, which, ironically, are under the heading: less common. Thatās a joke. In January I saw a video on YouTube of a younger woman who had been on Gabapentin for almost 20 years and was thought to have Dementia. Her family was in the process of institutionalizing her when her close neighbor/friend suggested it might be the Neurontin. Turns out it was the Gabapentin destroying/fogging her brain. It took her over a year to get off the high dose she was on and then for some of the adverse effects to slowly dissipate. After two years, she is still experiencing withdrawal symptoms...
This drug was highly recommended and prescribed to me by a neurologist and a pain management ādoctorā. Neither warned me of the drugās dangers, not once. My pharmacist never warned me of the dangers either. I wish Iād had an inkling of how dangerous, difficult & psychologically damaging this drug was to discontinue before I had ever taken the first pill. I wish someone, anyone had warned me that it damages the brain.
Consider yourself warned!
Do not ever, ever, ever take Neurontin/Gabapentin/Gabarone/Gralise. If you value your brain, do not take this drug! It basically, over a short time, made me feel like a zombie. I felt like I was sleepwalking through my life. I contemplated suicide often.
Below are a FEW of the side effects I experienced over eight years taking the drug for severe neuropathy pain in my legs and feet. I canāt recall all of them because...memory loss. It helped the pain for a while, but at far too high a price... Gabapentin is being widely used to replace opiates when, in fact, it is a thousand times more dangerous.
My ācome to Jesusā experience was this year, in a rare lucid moment, when I picked up a book and couldnāt read it because Iād read one paragraph, then forget it, or not comprehend what Iād just read. I normally read a book a day and have for over 40 years. Now, I have to listen to audiobooks. Iām avidly praying my concentration returns once Iām done slowly titrating myself off this hideous poison. Iāve been told that some of the withdrawal symptoms last up to two YEARS. Just this week, I had a scary, panicked feeling that reality, without Gabapentinās numbing effects, was crushing me...I had a serious panic attack and took a second 100 mg dose that day. Iām trying to be kind to my wounded, battered brain. Itās hell getting off this toxic shit. Iāll say that over and over...
The side effects I experienced, every one listed here, came to me GRADUALLY, over time, not upon first taking the Gabapentin. I was shocked when I began making the list:
Mania, intermittently
Anhedonia
Red, burning feet
Weight gain (I gained over 30 pounds that stuck like glue no matter how healthy I ate.)
Dizziness
Brain fog
Insomnia
Lethargy (Severe)
Crying
Depression
Weakened muscles
Swelling in ankles & hands, intermittently
Severe stomach upset
Anxiety
Blurred vision
Memory loss, short term
Tiredness
Balance issues
Restlessness
Agitation
Nausea
Vomiting
Suicidal thoughts
Hallucinations
Auditory hallucinations
Hoarseness
Pain in back (Oh, the irony)
Concentration issues
Chills
Hot flashes
Seizures
Hives
Unusual bruising
Runny nose
Chronic cough
Bloating
Dry eyes
Constipation
Diarrhea
EARS RINGING
Gas
Skin crawling
Red, hot ears
Strangely, the withdrawal symptoms have been eerily similar to the side effects, the insomnia being the worst, then the feeling of reality crushing me. Some of the less serious side effects are lessening after several months of slowly titrating, thank God.
My first attempt to cut down my low 300 mg twice per per day dose almost killed me. I, wrongly, tried cold turkey before knowing the dangers of doing that. I went 5 days with not one wink of sleep. No one believes me, but I would lay in bed, eyes closed and not sleep. It was terrifying. During this period I had hallucinations, visual and audio. I āsawā someone shining flashlights in the window. No one was there. I āheardā doors being slammed and loud, clanging sounds. I had a seizure.
I stopped the withdrawal experiment immediately because it scared me, horrified me, which led me to start researching the drug. Thatās when my doctor poo pooed my āimagining these side effectsā and encouraged me to UP THE DOSEAGE! No shit, the idiot wanted me to take more of this poison... I refused to let him up the dose and he refused to lower my dose to the 100 mg capsules. Most patients are on up to 5400 mg per day which is pure abuse! But low or high dose, the withdrawal is as acute. Iām down to 100 mg per day using water titration and itās taken me months to drop down very slowly to avoid more withdrawal, but, make no mistake: you will experience withdrawal no matter how slowly you titrate or how low the dose you take.
I wanted to post this to warn others of the extreme dangers of taking AND stopping Gabapentin/Neurontin, which should not even be on the market, in my opinion. It literally rewires your perfect brain, sadly. Hopefully, very slow titration will help my brain to uncross the fucked up wiring caused by the Gabapentin.
And, trust me, the doctors and pharmaceutical companies can care less. I highly recommend reading Gabapentin patient forums and articles on the dangers of this newest panacea, money maker for big pharmaceutical. Pharmaceutical companies are all about money, not individual patient care.
Doctors are no longer treating chronic pain patients with safer, lower dose opioids. Instead, theyāre pushing this dangerous Gabapentin poison on people in severe chronic pain. Itās a travesty and a living nightmare. Your brain and your entire nervous system become numbed...to everything, in a nightmarish way.
In ten lifetimes I would never have taken this shit if ANYONE had warned me that it could cause Dementia-like symptoms over time. There were days when I couldnāt remember what happened the hour before. It was horrifying. Iām just happy (but still in severe withdrawal misery) that I had a moment of lucidity and the strength to decide to stop taking it. Most days I feel like Iāll never get my functional brain back, but then Iāll have flashes of memory that I thought had been lost...and it gives me hope.
Suicide rates in chronic pain patients are skyrocketing because theyāre desperate to STOP THE PAIN! Thereās an excellent documentary on Amazon titled, āPain Warriorsā about the needless suffering of chronic pain patients. Another travesty...
I am among those harmed by new, draconian pain management āguidelinesā. I recently quit my pain management after 8 years of being treated like a criminal drug seeker (for two low dose Percocet in the end, which, by the way, gave me little relief for only a few hours). It just wasnāt worth the harassment. And yes, I was seriously harassed by my little pain management doctor, may he burn in hell.
He had me on a working dose of medication for many years...which gave me my mobility, enabled me to go to the gym, grocery shopping, cook, clean house and have some semblance of a life...all gone now. Today, I can barely walk to my mailbox to get the mail... Then he got busted, investigated, whatever by the DEA for overprescribing. Not to me, for sure, but to others. Thatās when individual patient care went out the window and robotic prescribing by a government chart (his story, not mine) started. WHY? To save his sorry, greedy ass from losing his medical license. Heās not suffering but his patients are, greatly. I know this from talking to dozens of them in his waiting room the past few years. And he is one of only two pain management doctors in my area and the other doctor does not accept new patients. I feel cornered and helpless...
Iām thinking of trying medical marijuana, recently approved in tincture form only, in my state. The Catch-22 here is that itās not covered by insurance and is exorbitantly expensive for someone in my well-below-poverty-level income range: $250 for the doctor (dealer, really) visit (many visits annually) and up to $150 per month for the āmedicationā. Iām conflicted: do I stay in constant, debilitating pain or cancel my cable, lower my already low grocery bill, stop using heat to lower the electric bill, etc. to find the funds to do it? Iād be paying roughly 24% of my total annual income...for a bit of pain relief. Thatās criminal when I was getting major pain relief for under $40 per month in pain management before the doctorās criminal issues. I may try it for a month to see if it even works. Iām skeptical, but hopeful. I canāt go on living in the level of pain I am in. Itās almost unbearable...
Note: Lyrica is also in the āGABAā family of drugs. Be very wary of taking it, too.
