Dear Mari,

short answer: generally, yes the "hangover" effect should go away. depending on the situation it can happen very quickly or very slowly. with high doses (bear in mind, ppl take up to 5 grams of this stuff) it might not happen at all.

long answer: i never felt hungover in the true sense... it made me feel more drunk than hung over. when i was ramping up this last time, i couldn't walk straight, or at least felt like i wasn't walking straight. this would be accounted for by the sedative effect.

in my case the sedative effect has always gone away quickly in the past. when i would take it to sleep, 300 mg would only work for 1 or 2 nights, and after that it would do nothing at all. this time, i was also on a pretty high dose of Depakote (1500mg) and i think the combined effect was causing problems. it seemed like depending how i spaced the doses i got the drunk effect worse or not so bad or not at all. but if i backed off on a dose just one day, then took more again, it would get worse again... it seemed that tolerance to the sedative effect was hard to develop for me in these conditions, contrary to my prior experience with gabapentin. i was taking 900-1200 mg which is somewhat irrelevant insofar as it seems to me you are pretty sensitive to some meds, ie. you seem to respond to, or experience effects, at very low doses.

i am wondering if the morning sedation (if that is what you mean by hungover?) is caused by a combination of the klonopin and gabapentin.

on a weekend i might experiment with taking less klonopin at night and see if the "hangover" effect lessens.

well those are pretty much my exhaustive thoughts other than i'm sorry it isn't helping the nerve pain yet... bit early for that, sigh.

it might take you a while to get used to it, but if it can be done it might be worth it.

sending you hopeful wishes and (((hugs)))

~ waves ~