Lately, I've had to urinate much more often and when I feel the urge to go it can get quite intense. Is this normal sfn or maybe a SE of gabapentin?

I think its called neurogenic bladder. I have it.
Feels like a constant pressure/ poking feeling and is terrible at night.

I also have it and it comes and goes. In my case the docs usualy regard it as another symptoms of the autonomomic nervous system that can be affected by SFN.

Normal for Diabetes, I had no SE like that on Gaba. Good Luck, Ken in Texas.

My issue is when I wake I can't pee. I have to walk around and massage, run water or sit in a warm tub or a heating pad over the bladder. Then some deep breathing and relaxing amap and when sitting I bend from the waist and put my hands on the floor. (BTW this works great if you are constipated.) Anyway it usually begins to flow in about 5-10 minutes from when I actually sit. Then I'm pretty good throughout the day.

I definitely have to urinate more at night when symptoms are present. Often it's right after I just went. I don't think it's a SE of Gabapentin.

I have this too...I was diagnosed with something called interstitial cystitis (IC)for a few years before my neuropathy symptoms came on. Many of the symptoms described here. You can google this, sorry I don't know how to post a link.

When I was taken Gabapentin two things happened to me. One was dizziness. The other was THIRST. From being quite phobic to drinking water (I oddly did not like it much), it became my best friend. I had my head under the tap several times a day. It was sooo gooood... LOL.

Of course I peed quite a bit too. Oddly enough I have a relative with diabetes insipidus and she claimed I might have gotten that, but I knew it was a side effect even if it was listed NOWHERE. When I quit the med, that went away after a few weeks.

I have another med now (totally different class), Ritalin, and it makes me run to the bathroom like crazy with urgency. It's not supposed to do that either. Not much coming out though, it's more like my bladder turned pea sized.

There are so many strange side effects that are never listed. Does not mean they don't exist.

Of course my glucose levels were tested (several times), always normal.

diabetes insipidus is not related to diabetes, it is the result of the lack of hormone vasopressin produced by the brain, and it doesnt concentrate the urine. if you drink alot of water every day, urination is usually very frequent.

--with both gabapentin (Neurontin) and Lyrica (Pregabalin), fluid retention and urination frequency changes are listed as fairly common side effects.

These two drugs are among the minority of medications that are not appreciably processed through the liver, but generally excreted "whole" through the actions of the kidneys. That generally means good kidney function is a prerequisite for taking them, and many people notice differences in their urinary patterns while on appreciable doses of them.

Of course, the problem is if one has neuropathy--particularly autonomic types--one can have urinary, and colonic, and other symptoms due to the effects of the neuropathy, and it may be hard to distinguish these from medication side effects.