I also found out the hard way about Lyrica withdrawal. I was put on it by one of the pain pill pushers(M.D). No one ever said ANYTHING about withdrawal. I had a laminectomy on 2011 and just quit cold turkey not knowing any better. 5 days later I had one of the darkest days of my life. I couldn't figure it out. Until I went online. There it was from others like myself. But I went back on it because it worked. Now I have been weaning myself off it for about 3 months. I was on 300 mg/day. 75 mg 4x's a day. So I started with dropping one pill a day for two weeks at a time. It was not really a problem until the last pill. At that time I started to take one pill every other day for 3 weeks. Then I stopped a week ago. I began to realize yesterday that I was beginning to have withdrawal again. The coughing, flu like feeling. The shortness of breath. I could not go to sleep for 3 hours after I laid down last night.I guess I will have to go back to the regimen of every other day or maybe every third day (or night). In the interim as I was going through all this, I had surgery on my right foot. I had to take pain pills which probably masked the withdrawal. I also, on some nights, would take some Xanax. It was an old script my wife had that had expired but it did help me sleep. I may ask my Dr. for some lower doses to help. But I think that many, not all, Dr.'s just push the drug company pills.

I am determined to beat this. The forums help and like in the 12 step programs, being aware of what is happening is the first step.