Does anybody have the feeling that ur body is being compressed and something heavy is sitting on top of u?

Typically, Gabapentin is taken three times a day (equal amounts)...so morning, mid day and evening. Personally, I would take the last dose around 8 pm so it will be working good for bed time.

How much did he prescribe? Did he also give you enough to increase a little after a few days?

he wanted me to start out on 100mg morning and lunch and 300mg at bedtime. after a few days increase by 100, keep going like that. He only gave me a 14 day supply but wanted to see me again this week and next week. I guess he will talk to me about how it's going.

Have you noticed any improvement?

Ugh, with all the pain I'm in u would think I would have started GABapentin. However, my husband convinced me that I didn't give nortriptyline a long enough enough try at the dosage the neuro recommended (40, although my pcp said 50 which I did get up to but only stayed on it for one day before dropping to 40). So I went back up to 40 on nortriptiline. I am feeling better pain releif but my twitching and jerking is really ramped up. I'm scared that the nortriptyline will cause this issue to worsen permanently or worse develop into a serious movement disorder. So I want to get off The nortriptiline and stay off for awhile to see if I return My previous levels of twitching and jerking. But I soooo scared of the pain returning cus it's dampened right now. Then I will start gabapentin. I don't know if I can handle that though. Can't go back to the full blown pain, ahh I don't know what to do. I can't figure all this out. I'm scared of staying on and scared to get off.

I honestly don't understand why you would consider putting yourself through more pain/discomfort then you have to. The doctor said ok to take both and frankly, that's what you should do. Most here take the combo.

Your twitching/jerking was here long before the nortriptyline and it's probably just progressing. It's also something the Gabapentin may help with.

You're likely in for a long haul with your plan. Give this some thought.

Obviously, everyone is different, but I can tell you that Gabapentin has reduced my twitching and cramping issues by about 90%. The twitching and cramping were my first symptoms, and I got to a point that I was having a really hard time driving (which I obviously need to do for work). The doctor prescribed Gabapentin - I had used it previously, and I didn't necessarily like the side effects, but felt I could tolerate them if it kept me functional and employed.

Of course, I'm trying to find other ways of controlling things through lifestyle, diet, and supplements. Hopefully I'll be able to get to a point where I can reduce or eliminate the Gabapentin.

As I mentioned in a previous post, you are in a critical phase. You need to find a way to control your pain so you can return to some level of sanity. Once you have your pain under control, you can work on trying to resolve the underlying condition (and ultimately getting off the medications). The Gabapentin + Nortriptyline combo seems to work well for many people. And, I think some people find that smaller doses of multiple medications have lower side effects than large doses of a single medication.

I do have to warn you though - Gabapentin can be tough to withdraw from. You need to taper off really slowly. But then, many if not most of the medications we use for for pain have similar issues.

Gabapentin is not metabolized by the liver, and is excreted whole by the kidney. This reduces many metabolic side effects when other drugs are used with it. Doctors know this and often prescribe it in combinations. (many drugs will interfere with each other --increasing or decreasing effectiveness or chance for overdosing----but gabapentin is safer in this regard.)

It will however, increase sedative effects, when the other drug is also sedating.

My twitching reduced 90% also on the gabapentin-nortriptyline combo. I was on that combo for almost year before I tried stopping the nortriptyline. I went 2 months without the nortriptyline and it was a terrible mistake. Burning all over the place and I couldn't function well.

This is more of an art than a science. Take your medication for several months and find some relief. Then try tweaking or reducing medication levels. I used to say that I will never take medication of any kind.....well this condition sure changed my mind pretty quick.


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[QUOTE=madisongrrl;1139127]My twitching reduced 90% also on the gabapentin-nortriptyline combo.

question...when you guys say "my twitching reduced 90%" did you mean you have 90% less twitches or is the intensity of each twitch reduced by 90%

right now the nortriptyline isn't reducing my twitches AT ALL (I still have 100+ twitches per minute everywhere in body all at the same time. However, the overall intensity of my twitches (how strong they are) has gone down.
I was hoping the nortriptyline would reduce the number I get, but it hasn't. I am wondering if gabapentin will actually reduce the number I get.