Wow, Barb, that is a high dose!!

marketed as "gabapentin" is a placebo to greater than 90% of the people who take it. It has been supplanted by "Lyrica" because it was coming off patent (it is a simple structural amino acid analog, discovered a long time ago). The only difference chemically between Neurontin and Lyrica, is that they broke open a cyclohexyl ring to gain a "patentatable difference", which is laughable how they bamboozled the FDA by this one. In the meantime, millions of people with chronic pain will have to spend (waste) a big buck to "try" Lyrica for two weeks before they can go back to their doctors and get some "real relief" from opioids.
And that is the world of drug discovery these days. Find something that is "minimally useful" for one reason or another (low toxicity, few side effects) and make it patentably distinct, so the FDA will buy the BS and approve it, then, when ten million prescriptions have been filled, and the the `real story`of it`s ineffectiveness comes out, take it off the market, but keep the "change" to the pharmaceutical company.

I took Neurontin for a short time..It made me dizzy and sick, I stopped it at a low doseage, so didn't have to worry about withdrawal.

I am off all of the poisons now. The only thing I take for pain, is aspirin or aleve if pain is real bad. For really really bad pain, I like a darvocet or percoset fix.

Obviosly, I am one of the lucky ones, who is not plagued by chronic nerve pain. My love and sympathy for those of you who are..

I am one of the lucky ones. Neurontin has been a godsend for me. I did not gain weight or have any personality changes that others talk about. I still get some breakthrough pain as well as nerve pain during spinal flares. I've been on it for 7 years now. However, I am on a very small dose compared to others - 300 mg in the a.m. and 600 mg before bed.

I'm on 900mg before bed and 300 mg each as needed during the day. Sometimes it's just the AM, sometimes before each meal depending how bad my TN gets. My Rhuemy told me that if I hit over the 2100mg total mark - we're gonna search for something else. Almost there, but so far it's the only thing that touches my pain.

It's so weird how it works for some but not others...

I know it helped the neuro pain when I first began taking it, but stopped after a while and the dose kept going up, up, up...glad I'm no longer on it.
I hate the spasm pain so much more than the nerve pain...

I had horrendous side effects on this medication. I stopped taking it months ago, but the withdrawal from the drug was horrible in itself getting off it.

Laura, I agree! I was dizzy and nauseated for over a month.

So this is Lyrica? I took it for a while, made me swell and I became dizzy, I was on it when I first started noticing my dizziness, thought it was the med, then went off, guess what, still dizzy.

i'm gabapentin user for 10 years, i take very big dose - 2400mg per day. May be i had some side effect in the beginning - just don't remember, but it didn't change my weight a bit. So, lyrica did – and I stopped taking it – didn’t work for me.