Hi everyone,

To give you guys the scoop behind the reasoning for taking for Gabapentin, I was diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome in March this year (left shoulder). It wasn't until April that I was prescribed Gabapentin. I gradually started taking 300 mg at first, then 600 mg, then 900 mg, 1200, and was ultimately put on 1800mg in June.

Each time I went to the doctor's, I was explaining to him that I didn't see any benefit from the medication. It made me drowsy, emotional, and it certainly wasn't helping out with the pain. Instead of taking me off of the medication, he insisted to wait it out and have me keep increasing.

At 1800mg (600mg 3x a day), the pain was still there. I felt like Ibuprofen and physical therapy were more effective than anything else. I continued my regimen of taking my medicine (Gabapentin, Zoloft, Turmeric, Omega 3, and Multivitamins) until there was one day I was out with my friends and missed two doses of my Gabapentin (only taking 600 mg). Literally, the day after, I had chills, hypersensitivity on skin, constipation, teeth grinding, increased back pain, insomnia, change in temperature perception (had the water on high heat for my bath and didn't feel the warmth at all), tingling in places other than my nerve compression, numbness, and tight leg muscles. The doctors couldn't believe how sensitive I was to the medication, but they told me to basically put back what I missed into my system- so I went back to taking the 1800mg and my body just still wasn't having it. When I continued taking it, I didn't feel any better.

At this point, my nerve compression was no longer even there. So, I talked with my doctors about weaning off of the medication completely. In short, here are the three weaning schedules I was given since the end of June:


from neurologist: wean 100mg every day, done with medication in 18 days
from Children's Hospital Sports Medicine Doctor: wean 100mg every 3 days
from Children's Hospital Pain Management Facility: wean 200mg every 2 days, then once at 500, decrease 100mg every 2 days

As you can see, I have reached out to many of my different specialists trying to figure out what the hell I can do to escape this misery. Since getting back on the medication and withdrawing from it, the side effects have included: chills, conspitation, hypersensitivity, teeth grinding, muscle twitching in legs, random muscle pains, numbness, terrible headaches, and surprisingly not even an increase of pain in my left shoulder (where my compression was) - which makes me wonder if I was right all along that the drug never worked for me. That being said, I know some people who have raved that this drug is a miracle drug- so I'm glad it has worked for some people- just clearly not the drug for me.

Anyways, right now, I am at 300mg (100mg 3x a day). Honestly, I feel as if my whole weaning schedule has been whack this whole entire time because of the lack of communication with my doctors. When it came to the point when I finally convinced my doctor that hey this isn't working and it's also interfering with Zoloft (I have acid reflux as well- so medications furthering my GI problems), they all seemed to finally piece together that I should have never been on Gabapentin and Zoloft together.

It's been a hell of a frustrating process and what makes it even more frustrating is that taking the drug makes me feel bad and withdrawing from it makes me feel bad, which comes in a trickier dilemma. I know that Gabapentin is supposed to be weaned off slowly because it can have severe withdrawal effects, but god I feel like I've been through the worst two months of my life withdrawing from this drug. It's taken me away from physical therapy, the gym, social events, etc.

Anyways, I'm only 20 years old and in two weeks, I move back for my senior year of college (August 22nd, to be exact). Ideally, I would love to just get this medicine out of my system, so I guess my question to you former and current Neurontin users- If I decreased by 100mg every 2 days and just got it out of my system completely on the 16th- would that be okay given my situation? Also, once it is out of my system, how long would the withdrawal continue for?

Ah, I understand that this is a very long and confusing story. Trust me, I've been on an emotional and physical roller coaster, too. I appreciate you all reading this over and giving me your input.