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Patrick Winter · 11-03-2015, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ragtop262

I've tried about a half dozen different anti-depressant medications, and couldn't tolerate any of them. Tricyclics give me severe constipation, and make me impossible to live with. Prozac made me anorectic. Paxil made my head feel like a lightning storm was going on inside. A couple others made me want to sit down and eat handfuls of sugar right out of the bag. All of them completely shut down my sexual function.

Gabapentin I can tolerate. It's somewhat sedating, but I can stay awake during the day - and the sleepiness is welcome at night. It also helps a lot with my relatively mild but chronic back pain (I have a few minor disc issues.). For my PN, it controls twitching and cramping and moderates the pain somewhat. I can still function sexually, but not at 100%. I'm taking 1800/day. Neuro would like me to try higher, but I don't want to unless things get significantly worse.

You won't get much more relief above 1800. The efficacy drops by a ton. It goes from about 60% maximum absorption to about 30%. So what ends up happening is you end up flying all the way up to 3600 becuase you're really in need of double the dose after 1800. I think the body adjusts to this drug, especially if you are thin and relatively healthy otherwise. I have had to cycle up and down on the drug to obtain consistent - albeit moderate relief. This is without doctor's advice, sometimes you just understand how your body reacts better than the doctors does.