Thank you Nilram for your reply.
My doctor was trying to shift me to Lyrica but I refused since I had some scary negative thoughts when I started on Gabapentin. Since the two medicines work, more or less, the same, I did not want to go through that negative thought process. I was on 1200mg/day just on my 2nd month of neurological symptoms (I am now on my 7th month of PN). On several occasions, I tried to taper the Gabapentin, but everytime I do it, I notice that my symptoms back up. I am trying to stay on this dosage for as long as I can. Though, with this dosage, soometimes it works but sometimes, it doesnt. And during the times that it works, it will give me at least 2-3 hours of relief. That is why, the doctor recommended the Nortriptyline as additional medication.
Did I get you right on your current Gabapentin dosage, is it 1200mg 3x a day (total of 3600mg per day), or is it just a total of 1200mg per day? With this dosage, I would assume you are taking Nortriptyline too....
Acupuncture does not work for me too.
I have all sorts of calming and meditation music....I have also several meditation-guided audio. They help me put to sleep. But I am not sure if its the meditation that puts me to sleep or the bedtime gabapentin
Even how painful my feet are, I try to do the stationary bicycle and very short walk, just to prevent the edema and encourage circulation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nilram
As I remember, I tapered off the nortriptyline and the pain was somewhat higher, but I don't think I had a rebound effect where it went higher than originally. And then later I switched from gabapentin to lyrica (tapering off of gabapentin with a doctor's advice, and moving onto lyrica). For some people, according to this pain doc, lyrcia works better and they appreciate the better dosing schedule (2x and versus 3x with gabapentin). That wasn't the case for me -- I thought gabapentin worked better, so we tapered me off of lyrica and back on to gabapentin.
I tried to taper off of gabapentin and see how I could do without medication. The best I could do was to use 300 mg 3x/day for a while, but I soon figured out that I was just going to have a ridiculous amount of pain doing that. I went back to 600 mg 3x/day. As time went on, I moved it up to two 600s during the day and 900 at night... Then to 900s also during the day... And now I'm back to 1200 mg 3x/day, which is the max dose. Since this started, I have always been using some kind of medication.
When using nortriptyline, I was also using a bulking agent like metamucil, but also found I needed something like miralax as well. They have different ways of acting that can be complimentary.
I've also found stress-relieving meditations to be helpful (focusing on the breath), massage, and gentle exercise. Acupuncture didn't do much for me, but has helped some people.
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