Originally Posted by michaelavi

Hi,

I joined this forum due to the thread :"Lyrica Withdrawal - How Long Will This Last?" however I've noticed that many of the responses are from years back. Some of the members who have been updating on their healing process usually stopped once they updated a few times. Some even got up to a year and a half.

Some have reported feeling better but not fully recovered, some reported feeling the same (bad feeling but it could be worse).

I feel absolutely miserable knowing I'm responsible for messing up a really good life. I never was suicidal, and I know that's not even an option... but I wish I could restart the last bit of last year. I would do everything NOT to go to the psychiatrist. I realized I never needed an anti-depressant. I've been through so much worse in my life and I always recovered. This?

I've received a prescription for Pregabalin for 75mg, 2x a day. Then raise it to 4x per day (2 at night and 2 in the morning) for GAD. Around the 1 week point is where I noticed a LOT of side effects, much more so than the first few days. I began tapering around the 2 week mark as I understood it could be even worse with the lowered seizure threshold had I immediately gone cold-turkey.

It took 2 weeks to taper, and in total I spent just over a little of 1 month on it. Around 60-70 75 mg pills ingested. And those ruined my life. I now have passed the acute withdrawal stage, where I don't have much physical symptoms anymore but most of it mental. I have constant ringing in my ears, I have worse vision with visual disturbances (floaters, visual snow, light sensitivity, etc.), I have obsessive and intrusive thoughts of which I've never had a problem like this prior to taking Pregabalin, massive daily anxiety (way worse than I've ever had), my depersonalization (for which I originally took Pregabalin for) is daily now whereas before it was only a few hours. I feel constantly in and out of dp/dr, like a dream-like state.

I'm much less paranoid now, and I feel noticably better than I did last month... but I thought it'd be over by now. It's been 2 months since I've been off Pregabalin.

Has anyone made a full recovery? Or at least partial? How are you guys doing who are 6, 12, 18, 24 months past Pregabalin? I understand I fall in the rare category, as I took it much less and a lower dose than some people report and yet my body took a massive toll.

I can't work, I can't study. I've lost a lot of my dreams and goals. The major thing pushing me forward to live is to be there for my girlfriend. My family and her are perfect. She's there for me as much as she can, especially now when I'm in my weakened state, and I had a lot of long-term plans with her (kids, moving in, etc.).

I don't want to take any SSRIs as I'm scared of furthering my side effects, especially with tinnitus. But if this persists for months more, I may be forced to.

Thank you.