I've been on Lyrica for 5 years, my does is 400mg per day. I took more or less depending on how bad or good I felt or if I needed superhuman powers to sit in a car a few hours or do some gardening. I gained 50 pounds in 2 years! As of last week I was still up 30 pounds and decided to get off of it, mainly because it's going to cost me $217 to refill it! Lyrica has given me a serious sweating problem, even mores so since I started tapering off. Night is so bad that my husband changes beds if I don't wake up and do it first! I read that Benadryl helps with that and didn't believe it much but wow! I'm dry! I'm down to less than 100mgs a day and I've lost 8 pounds this last week. That amazes me. The withdrawals have been bad, anxiety and agitation get to the point where I could scream and I have a very short temper. I told my husband it's withdrawals but he thinks I'm in control of this rage inside me. I'm a low key person and this is not me! Everything ****** me off! Getting out of the shower, drying off and becoming soaked with sweat instantly was driving me mad enough, now the anxiety, depression, and shakiness inside are there too.
I'm scheduled to start suboxone in a week for the oxy and morphine. My doctor won't be around till then and he wants to monitor me closely. I didn't have enough lyrica to wait for that day and don't know if it'd help with that anyway. Lyrica worked well for me. I didn't hurt as bad and my anxiety attacks stopped the day I went on it. I have fibromyalgia which they say was caused by trauma following an accident. I've had back surgery and many procedures and I have arthritis. I didn't realize that arthritis was as painful as it is. My joints are getting damaged as well. I don't know how I'll live off of pain medicine, but I don't know how I can live on it. I'm in my 40s, I could have 30 more years and how many times can they raise my dose? It will kill me eventually. My body spits it out as fast as I put it in. My life revolves around doctor appointments and trips to the pharmacy. I'm an hour away from the closest doctor and pharmacy so it's a pain! I take too much on the bad days then break them all in half so I don't run out...I have a lot of bad days! I have dreams of hiking, camping, traveling, spontaneous things. I doubt that I'll ever feel I'm up to all that lol! I get into big denial over my health issues...
So, just how long will this last??? Withdrawal while still on meds seems so, so wrong! I think my symptoms are better than day 3 of tapering though. I'm on about day 7 or 8.
BENADRYL YEAH!