Hi, I am a new member who is looking to quit Lyrica but my history in dropping powerful drugs like this has left me with far more questions than answers. i was placed Zoloft to treat chronic idiopathic nausea in 2011. I've still got the nausea and it took me 18 months to get off the Zoloft. Also, 5 months later I'm still experiencing some of the withdrawal effects like dizziness, mood swings, sleep issues and of course the nausea. Fortunately all are slowly improving although it often feels like one step forward and two steps back.

The Lyrica was given to me for chronic pain following rectal surgery, but as I tried to tell anyone who would listen at the time, my pain was not neurological but rather the result of chronic pelvic floor syndrome that had probably been building up all my adult life and Lyrica is absolutely useless in treating it. Unfortunately when no one would listen to me or offer any other treatment I foolishly went with the Lyrica and have been taking 150 mg a day for two years.

When I began the Lyrica I was already taking 900 mg of gabapentin for evening restless legs. I had taken it for years with no problem. However, when I added the Lyrica to the gabapentin my nausea got much worse. So my doctor's PA messed with the dose until we discovered that I could tolerate 150mg of Lyrica and 700 mg of gabapentin without increasing my baseline nausea.

So the question now is how do I get off the Lyrica safely and as quickly as possible. A year ago I tried dropping by only 5 mg a week using the liquid Lyrica, but after a week my nausea had spiked and I went back to the 150 mg. I want to try again now because I know the longer I take it the longer it's likely to take me to get off. I could start by dropping only 1 mg a week, but based on my experience with Zoloft I'm almost certainly going to have to reduce the taper as 1 mg becomes a larger percentage of the remaining dose and at my age it may take the rest of my life, which is not how I hoped to spend my retirement.

The other option is to simultaneously stop the Lyrica and go back to the full 900 mg of gabapentin. At one time my brain and gut seemed to accept the 200 mg of gabapentin I dropped to be the equivalent of the 150 mg of Lyrica I started. I discussed this option with my neurologist and she said it was worth a try, although she admitted she had no idea what might happen. The best she could offer was that if it was too bad I could "probably" get back to the status quo by going back to the 150 mg of Lyrica and 900 mg of gabapentin. Not exactly reassuring.

So, my questions is whether anyone has similar experience and could offer me any opinions on how to go forward. I understand no one can give me medical advice and before I do anything I'll discuss it with my doctor, but at this point I I don't think mainstream medicine has anything to offer here. The doctors hand out the pills with little thought about how someone is going to stop taking them and the drug companies like to pretend that as long as you don't stop absolutely cold turkey everything will be fine.

thebrunz,

Hello and welcome, happy to see you have come to be with us, it a great place to be. As you can see we have a great number and caring fellow members here, where you have find a supportive and relaxing place. Have fun looking into the different forums. Our shoulders are here for support in many ways.

Click on to the following forum, there you will find some fellow members to a help you out

Medications & Treatments:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum72.html

Again welcome, looking forward to seeing you around. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Darlene

Welcome thebrunz.