Hi,

I'm new here and very thankful to have stumbled upon this forum.

I'm here for my husband as I research for solutions and information about drugs. He has had a very long history of issues over his life so it's been hard to try and narrow down a cause and treatment. This is his history:

At 5 he had hepatitis A with jaundice and was hospitalized. At 10 to 11 he experienced debilitating pains on his right side that would cause him to drop in pain. Shortly after that he got terrible itching in his legs to the point where he would scratch till he bled.

No doctor at the time (80's) could find a cause or cure. Eventually it subdued and wasn't as bad. Then in his 30's he starting having anxiety issues in public places so he was put on Paxil - originally at 60 mg he then dropped down to 30 and 20 mg after we found out about that medication.

in 2003 he ended up having a herniated disc. He was in excrutiaing pain and they had him on Demerol, Ms Contin and eventually a pain patch they give to dieing cancer patients. It took 2 years of fighting (Canadian healthcare) to have MRI's, see a useless neurologist and eventually get to a neuro surgeon. He was operated on but after the surgery came out with the same numbing and pins and needles in his right foot that he had before. Apparently they couldn't get everything out.

2 years after this he started having problems sleeping with a restless feeling, creepy crawly feeling in his legs. Through all this he was still on Paxil so we thought Paxil could have been the cause of this since we learned it alters brain chemistry. He also had attempted 3 times to come off paxil abruptly which no one knew at the time was a bad thing and he couldn't sleep and had horrible itching and severe anger and mood swings which went away within hours of going back on Paxil. He was still diagnosed with Restless Leg Syndrome and the doctor kept him on Paxil to treat it. They tried Mirapex but even the lighted dose made him sleep 18 hours a day.

He eventually decided he wanted to be off paxil as he was still having issues with the restless legs and it was disrupting his sleep. He has been off paxil now for 6-7 weeks and has constant nerve pain in his legs, back and occasionally arms. He seems to have all the symptoms of Neuropathy - Nerve pain, poking feeling, tickling feeling, terrible itching, still some restlessness, creepy crawly feelings. He can't sleep. He's been given sleeping pills and pain medication, and now is on ms contin 15 mg which is doing nothing. He's going to double the ms contin to see if that helps.

We're waiting to see a neurologist but after researching I'm seeing this as definitely neuropathy and could be caused by his liver issues as a child and he has low cholesterol both good and bad and very odd triglycerides. He's also been a vegetarian for 10 years so the lack of amino acids could be at play.

I've got him on several supplements for niacin, b6, b12 and recently amino acids but it's not helping.

So after reading about all the other treatment options Nurontin, Lyrica, Cymbalta etc. I'm wondering ....

1. Paxil did help. The itching and nerve pain did not exist till he dropped to 10mg and worsened when he came off it. It made him sleepy, foggy and he didn't like that but compared to some of the issues I've read maybe the evil we know is better than the evil we don't know?

2. Would Cymbalta or another SNRI be similar to Paxil but not cause the foggy sleepy side effect?

3. Would Lyrica or one of the siezure based medications be better than Paxil?

4. Would staying on an opiate - ms contin at a dose that treats the pain be better?

Anyone had anything similar in experience to this or been on any of these medications feel one option is better than another? I know each person is different and will react differently to medication but I'm just trying to be prepared for our appointment (God only knows how long it will be) so if he offers a drug treatment we can refuse it if we feel it may not be good.

Thanks for reading my very long post .. I just felt it would be better to have the whole history.