G@bapentin Advice

[True_Love]

@2earls

Oh no, that sounds awful? & I agree this seems very easy to get addicted too. Thank you for the warning!

 

[2earls]

Just don't play with matches or...

Put your toaster under a roll of paper towels (great idea huh?)

I had loads of great ideas on that stuff!

 

[True_Love]

Shew that has to of been scary!! I will make sure to only take it when in absolute NEED!!

 

[2earls]

I'm sure you'll be fine. I was taking it daily over a period of time. It took a while to build up and whack me out. I didn't like Lyrica either, it made me depressed. That's why I have to stick with the good 'ol opeeits.

 

[True_Love]

Okay, it's been 4 days since I've took this med. I took 1,200 mg today & it still actually worked as the same. Took 2 hours to kick in tho. This time I'm so clumsy.... Having to catch my self from falling. But other then that it's working great.

 

[True_Love]

@2earls

Oh hunny, id prefer oppies too. That damn doctor.!!

 

[True_Love]

Okay. Yesterday I tried this med again at 1,500mg and did not feel a thing! So everybody's right when they say tolerance goes up after just a couple times... bummer

 

[zealious]

same here 2 earls. I feel wonky on it. Sleepy.

Like drunk light headed. I was really optimistic about it working anyway until I realized how expensive it was to fill. 

 

[Allhoney75]

My doc prescribed this to me for bulging disc pain. The dosage was 300mg and it didn't do anything except make me slightly off balance. I just never understand all the rage. I almost threw it in the trash and nearly called my doctor and cursed him out for giving me that trash to treat pain. I mean really!!! Kratom did a better job at easing my pain than this junk.

 

[2earls]

My doc prescribed this to me for bulging disc pain. The dosage was 300mg and it didn't do anything except make me slightly off balance. I just never understand all the rage. I almost threw it in the trash and nearly called my doctor and cursed him out for giving me that trash to treat pain. I mean really!!! Kratom did a better job at easing my pain than this junk.

That is the same thing I was prescribed this for. I think it is in the line of stuff they make you try before opies. Neurontin, Lyrica, Celebrex, Wellbutrin, Flexiril, and many more that I can't even remember.

 

[babealcakes]

I have been on serious meds for a long time, and I used gaba when I don't have better things. I take high doses (I have been on a consistent low dose for 7 years so I can massively up my quantity when necessary without just falling asleep for 40 years...), like 1500 mgs 3x daily, when I don't have other meds to help ease the pain. Realizing I could do this every once in a while (not for withdrawls, but just to cover a gap once I have tapered down the strong stuff) has been a real life saver for me. It does make you incredibly spaced out. Friends and fam are way more likely to tell me I seem 'stoned' when I am just doing the gaba, and once one of them, not realizing that I wasn't even on the strong stuff, told me that I should take less strong stuff since I was acting so out of it from the gaba. 

For general use, it's great to take about 900 mgs before bed, as a new user of the meds. This is how my dr told me to take it to begin with. Not only will you sleep much better, but you will, if you are like me, feel much better upon waking up. Much less stiffness and nasty gnawing back pain.

For withdrawls I will say some words of advice. I haven't used it for this purpose, but I can see one big plus and one big minus. The plus is that it is already used to treat restless leg syndrome, and it should keep you from thrashing around all night/day. The minus is that while it was developed as an anti-seizure med, it can cause them in some people. I had seizures from taking tram. for a long, long while at high doses, and every now and again gaba starts to send me there when I take large doses.

Some people might look at it as something to take to propitiate your dr on the long trek to getting what really does work for just about every one every time, but this med is a great tool for me at least, and it's actually the only thing I was buying to supplement my dr's wishes online for a very long time. It's an easy one to find, and a lot cheaper than most other pain meds...

I hope someone is still interested in this topic- I didn't see anyone sharing this particular info.

In the interest of full disclosure, though, I will say that I am doing the high dose in lieu of other things bit right now, and that's why I am spending all  my time on here researching how I can manage to do something other than just take gaba when I run out of options here at home!

 

[Suzie]

I am prescribed gabapentin 300mg. for nerve pain in my legs but my dr. never told me to take more than one at a time.  In fact, the way it was prescribed was to take one before bed for the first week and the second week take one at night and one in the morn, third week take one morning, afternoon and one in the evening.  I took them this way for months and then I noticed I was becoming rather "stupid".... no short term memory at all, clumsy and mind always felt clouded.  I told my dr. I was afraid I was getting symptoms of early Alzheimers.  She said those were side effects of the gaba so I cut out the afternoon dose and felt better immediately, head was clear and memory was better.  Now I only take one at night because when I tried stopping completely the leg pain came back.  The first time I took one at night it knocked me out like a sleeping pill, when I had to get up during the night it was hard to walk straight but that all went away fast. I would be scared as hell to take 1200mg. all at once.

 

[Silver Shadow]

Suzie thats how my dr prescribed it to me also. I had a bad mental reaction and decided to stop taking it but this medicine is a neurological med. it works by rebooting your brain to send the signals to your nerves to stop misfiring. Its prescribed for nerve pain. If its prescribed for opiate withdrawal its because during withdrawals your nerve endings are on fire and its nerve pain shooting down arms and legs. I would never down a dosage that big all at once either.theyre not like Tylenol or pks.Thats just really dangerous. Especially for people whove never taken it before. I advise anyone who has this med to google the dosage instructions those instructions are important and Google side effects as well as warnings. These aren't your average pk And they dont affect everyone the same way. Same as neurontin, lyrica, savella. Etc.

 

[True_Love]

GABA was a life saver for me when I was hurting

Really bad and had nothing else to fall on.

Or when I was without PK.

When I went back to the doctor I ask for more.

I got turned down. Said it's to much of a popular

Drug to abuse. BOO!!

 

[bruce.]

I have 100 mg and the first time I took it I thought these are o.k. I could go to work on these. In about two hours I couldn't walk through a doorway without bouncing off both sides of the door jamb! They are really fun at first then you get a tolerance pretty quick. But they do work for neuropathy, which is what they were prescribed to me for. My Dr. said I coud take one, three times a day or three at once one time per day, whatever works best for me. I haven't tried the three at once, though I've heard that's the way to go.

 

[babealcakes]

I certainly don't recommend the high doses for those who haven't had this before, but I would say that once you are adjusted to them it's great to take them at the same time as a moderate pk. I was on morphriend 60 mg 2x daily plus norcs for years and was only taking the gaba at bedtime (900 mgs that went up to 1200 mgs after 2 years). My insurance situation became f'ed and so I couldn't get the strong meds, and for a long time I was only doing the norcs during the day and the gaba at night. I went to a different doc who told me to take the gaba and norc at the same time throughout the day and I was doing quite well this way for about 8 months, once I got used to the wooziness induced by taking both pks at once. I would talk to your doc about the possible benefits of both gaba recommendations if you have a op-k as well as the gaba. Once you are used to the gaba it can be a real lifesaver. I opted for only the norcs when I was at my poorest (Walgreens does have the gaba on its list of meds discounted with their little discount card, so 30mgx120 was only 40 bucks or so. I shouldn't have neglected the gaba. I know much better now. But do be aware that it has some of the mood screwing effects of lyrica, cymbalta, etc. I had good experiences with both of those until I ended up with serotonin syndrome which was super scary.

There are many pros for gaba, as I said above, but the cons are also really pesky both in the short and long term. They make you super uncoordinated, gumby-like, sleepy, and absolutely abolish your memory. I can always tell what my gaba dose was at some specific point in time because I either have a memory of whatever I am being reminded of, or I have some dull, murky idea that has to be slowly dredged out of me by much prompting, photos, recaps, etc. And this can be something that happened a month ago- it's really nasty for your memory. I would have to cut my dose down a great deal when I was doing intense research and reading for my masters degree. It also needs to build up in your system before it takes full effect. When I was taking it all in one big dose at night I felt it most in the morning, although some side effects, like sleepiness, come on much faster for one reason or another.

It's hard to get a doc to take specific patient needs seriously, as most of us probably know, so I recommend getting one of those little journals for pain, eating-sleeping patterns, side effects, etc to make sure you can give your doc something concrete to look at if you are trying to find the right dose of this or any other med. Doing this allowed me to get my doctor to change the way I was taking many of my other meds, including ones that needed to be discarded, like muscle relaxers that did nothing for me except conk me out in uncomfortable positions! 

Other things in the family like lyrica, cymbalta, savella are worth investigating too. My bad reaction to the cymbalta was very rare and took days to diagnose, so it shouldn't scare people off. I have had many of the more severe but rare reactions to many different drugs I have been given- seizures from t-dolls, suicidal depression from amytriptyline, serotonin syndrome from cymbalta, tendon tearing and damage from cipro, etc. I am just one of those unlucky ones!  

But for those really looking for pain relief this, or something close to it, is essential for your tool kit. It's also useful for some odder treatments, like for kidney disease pain, restless leg syndrome, etc. If you don't have a doc or your doc doesn't feel like giving you what you need, there are plenty of sources for this here on the site- even some of the blacklisted pharms have given me totally legit gaba when I was in a pickle and needed to source my own. And it's not even that much more expensive than filling it from a traditional us pharm without insurance. 

So two thumbs up! People are right here to say that it's a great option for those living with chronic pain. It does have to be titrated up and down, and there are different time-tables for taking it, as mentioned above in my post and others. Sorry to rant- I just know that with the way docs are iron-fisted about op-ks that knowing how to incorporate this into my routine proved invaluable and saved me from having to beg for my old morphriend from docs in low income clinics- which never works, btw. 

Good luck! I have been trying to keep myself functional for 7 years since my back fell to shit, with the aid of the best specialists out there to the most incompetent boobs in the scariest low income clinics. I am somewhere in between those two places now, and am again feeling the pain of an outdated med plan, but this is a med that I will probably take til the day I die because it really does help! And I hope this post helps you too!