I've been off lyrica about 1 year and 6 months. I am pretty sure it caused damage that still lingers to this day. My sleep and happiness levels haven't returned to normal, i'm less patient, feel trapped and I worry about stuff a lot more, experience anxiety, etc. I have kept busy though and positive life experiences and incremental successes seem to be helping me rewire back to a pre-lyrica self, or maybe even better--a more experienced and gracious post-lyrica self.

I'm not a doctor by any means, but for myself, I would have taken a surgery over gaba drugs such as lyrica any day. I still have not yet had surgery, my sciatica inflammation comes and goes, and I can easily throw out my back as I did yesterday which is why I'm here writing this, obviously I haven't learned to sneeze correctly yet. I am looking forward to a possible surgery over the holiday. I've had symptoms for about 2.5 years and I had a first microdiscectomy in 2008, which was a total success, except I went back to doing labor work which ruptured the same disc more.

feel free to read my other posts as I was going through the severe withdrawal--they date back to the beginning. It's the biggest struggle I've ever faced, but it gets better. It just takes a while for some of us. I remember how it was one minute at a time at first, and a week, year, month seemed impossible. but time moves on and recovery happens when we let it i guess.

wish you all well.