I've been taking Lyrica since 2009, from 300-600mg depending on my activity/mental state. When Lyrica works, it works very very well...

Long term side effects for me are blurry vision that went away after a year, usually only happened right after I toke a pill. Drinking Alcohol is very intensified, one drink feels like you had five. You can learn to tolerate it, but it highly recommended that you do not drink! It does mess with my emotions a bit, but typically you should be on anti-depressants if you are suffering from chronic pain anyway. gabapentin and pre-gabapentin causes me some extra anxiety.

I have observed many people starting to take gabapentin and pre-gabapentin over the years and the biggest problem I have seen is that the doctors/patients are afraid to get to a therapeutic level of the medication because of the side effects of under dosage. When you tell you doctor you feel dizzy and have chronic drooling syndrome, and he says take more! and you are like are you nuts! He is correct, when you get to a therapeutic dosage all that goes away. Talk with your pharmacist if you have a doctor that is keeping you at a dosage that makes you feel dizzy.

The other problem is the myth of weight gain. Simply if you gain weight switch to gabapentin or vise versa if you do gain weight. The weight that is gain is more than likely either becoming more sedentary because you are no longer in pain, or your anxiety is causing some extra eating. Before you quit because you think it is the pill that is causing weight gain, use a calorie counting program to monitor your intake, and exercise. Being able to sleep for the first time in years uses a lot less calories than tossing and turning all night. Gaining weight is real and can happen fast, but if you take control and monitor and adjust your food intake you can probably avoid this.

With all that said... medication is only 1/2 the battle. If you having high anxiety and panic, depression, isolation, no pill is going to very effective. Your anxiety controls your level of how much the pain HURTS you. Anxiety can increase the inflammatory reaction in your body, and causes the pain intensity part of the brain to go into over drive.