Gabapentin Side Effects Coming back??
 

Hello:

I have been on Gabapentin now for over 2 months 600mg 3x daily. This was prescribed for neuropathy and I am awaiting my appt with a research hospital for more testing since my original neurologist believed that my test results and issues warranted more extensive testing....anyway...I thought i was over all the side effects of this medication until a few days ago when they seemed to have suddenly come back...cloudy thinking, not being able to focus properly and the feeling of dizziness and being very wobbly. Is it normal that I was over these symptoms but they have come back or could this be due to something else?

This drug is excreted whole by the kidneys. If your kidney functions change and become less normal, the drug cannot be cleared from the body and will build up.

I'd get some blood work done at the doctor's.

Make sure you are drinking enough water daily too.

Thank you...its just very odd...I don't recall feeling this way before its like being really drunk (when i close my eyes the room tends to spin) but nothing else has really changed in my diet and water intake..what is really nerve racking is that I am between doctors now...since i was just referred to a research hospital...and not sure if calling my primary care would do anything or a trip to the er for a cat scan / blood work *shrug* just wanted to make sure it was the meds that was making me feel really messed up all of a sudden esp since i have been on them for awhile now.

Doug

You can test this by dropping one dose of the gabapentin, and see if you feel better. You'll still be getting the other doses, so there should be little withdrawal.

Hiya DougB. I used to take 3600 mg/day and it didn't bother me at all. Also didn't help with the pain, which may not be relevant to your concerns. Anyway, I stopped taking it, then recently started again and found the side effects that you're describing with as little as 300 mg--it was making me loopy and barely able to function.

So you're not the only one who was once OK with it and now isn't. Is it helping your PN symptoms at all?

Thanks for pointing out the kidney function angle, mrsD...I will ask to have that looked at.

Just two follow-up thoughts:

• I was typing in "gabapentin" into Google and noticed some of the auto-complete suggestions that were coming up were "gabapentin recreational use" and "gabapentin abuse" and my jaw dropped! I won't claim that I didn't experience some interesting states of being in my ill-spent youth, but how could someone find this stuff fun? I think it's horrible, in a sloshy, slidey, struggling kind of way.
  
  
• 24 hours into Lyrica, and I'm finding that it gives me the same kind of feeling.:( I thought I read that they're both in the same family, but was hoping it wouldn't do the same thing.

Monkey:o)
 

Hey dearie just a FYI Lyrica is like a step up the "chain" It starts basically where the gabapentin would be after 1st pass through the body. This has advantages and disadvantages. In my case the advantage is the fact that it starts working faster, I dont seem to be able to convert from gabapentin or I could not despite the max dosage. I have also found that I need a far smaller dose to be effective.
HOWEVER:eek:, I found when I was working homecare that MANY older people could not tolerate it, I am quite sure that this is due to most older folks have poorer functioning kidneys and toxic levels building up. Lyrica is also s "schedule" drug with an increased possibility of abuse and addiction.
Hope this helps some

Yes, the Gaba is helping my issues, I am still awaiting an appt with the Neuro people at UVA hopefully they will find the root cause.

BTW my doc did a gaba levels test to see if my body is actually processing it correctly (which I am still awaiting the results on) and cut down my dose (however as it stands now the cutting down of my dose really isn't doing all that much)

Doug

I take gabapentin for Fibromyalgia.

For one thing I have to make sure I eat with my medicine.

Or I have all kinds of problems.

Donna

I'm not sure that I understand exactly what you're saying, pooh, but if I'm getting some of it right, I have noticed the much more rapid effects from it--not so much the sloshy fog head (that comes fast enough with whatever you take), but the decrease in pain I seem to be noticing is happing much sooner than I expected. I'm used to being told ''oh, you have to give this dose 3 to 6 weeks to work before you can decide it isn't help you." I've been on this (Lyrica) 4-1/2 days, and I'm so afraid to say it out loud that l think it might be helping, after trying all of that other stuff so patiently for so long. Well, it's too soon to tell. I'm not gonna believe it unit it makes me believe.

So now i am in a catch 22 it seems...my blood work came back and the gaba was filtering properly, however my doc wanted me to titrate down and go off it to see if it was actually causing my issues, he was right...I am down to 600mgs a day now and almost off of it however now that i am on a lower dose i do feel a lot better in terms of my vision, side effects, however my pain has come back :( I wonder if it would be worth trying Lyrica *shrug*