--depending on your size/weight, that dosage might range from a small one to a very small one. It's not uncommon, though, for doctors to start people out on fairly small doses of gabapentin and other anti-epileptics for nerve pain to see how effective they will be, and to see how prominent side effects will be.

Gabapentin side effects include short-term memory difficulties, general lethargy, and fluid retention/weight gain/carb craving. These are fairly common side effects among this class of medications; it seems as if the body responds to a lessening of neural propogation by acting as if it wants to hibernate. these side effects vary widely among individuals, though, and often lessen in time as the body acclimates to the dosage, which is why some people eventually have their dosages ramped up to get better pain symptom control. There have certainly been people on up to 2400mg to even 4800mg/day, though the "additive" effect of additional dosing tends to decrease at higher levels, since gabapentin is not metabolized in the liver but is instead excreted whole through the kidneys at a fairly constant rate. For this reason, higher doses are better taken broken up into three or four doses each day.