[TooStressed]

Has anyone else taken Gabapentin(Neurontin) and had success with it? Anyone have worse headaches on it? I've been on it for five days now and have gotten more frequent and worse headaches than before I started it. I'm taking 300mg and I am supposed increase the dosage to 600mg after a week. After day three, I emailed my neurologist about my situation and replied that she wants me to keep trying it as it takes a few weeks to kick in. Well, I think its already kicking(my butt) in. I don't think I can continue it for much longer.

I am still on 30mg of Amitriptyline a day and my neurologist prescribed the Gabapentin because the Amitriptyline was not mitigating all of my headaches. She is of the mindset that you must treat the headaches as aggressively as possible. Take as much medication as it takes in order to have completely headache-free days, thus breaking the vicious cycle. Now the Amitriptyline alone was giving me some headache-free days but nothing consistant. I still would have more headache days a week than non-headache. Always more prone to them after computer use. Plus, I would and still always have discomfort such as a cold or numbing sensation around my forehead and eye sockets.

__________________________________________________ ____________
10 months PCS. Chronic daily migraine and tension headaches.

[Mark in Idaho]

I have been on gabapentin for 11 years at 600mgs to 900 mgs. I was even on 1200 mgs for a while. I take it to control seizures when I sleep and to help me sleep by allowing my body and mind to relax.

I have no troubles with it. It is usually well tolerated. I have never heard of it being used for head aches.

It has a short half-life of only 8 hours. It does not need to build up in your system to work. You would need to take it 3 times a day to start it building up in your system.

I use Tylenol or Tylenol and aspirin combined for my head aches when they get bad.

[Eowyn]

I found that Topamax worked better for my headaches than amitriptyline. I haven't tried gabapentin.

[pcslife]

I took Gabapentin at night gave me headaches next day morning itself. My old Neurologist gave me for nerve pain(?). She tried quite a few others but nothing worked. If Elavil works some what you should be happy Seems like that is the first line of medication by many Neurologists.

Few doctors mentioned Lexapro and even they did a clinical trial at John Hopkins for TBI. I tried that too.

Now I am trying Trileptal based on my new Neurologist recommendation. Trileptal is mainly an anti-seizure med but now used for Bipolar Disorder and Trigeminal Neuralgia. All these meds for brain seems like a puzzle. Who knows what works for whom.

He thinks my pain may be due to Trigeminal Neuralgia (guess work ) Not doing much for pain but worked for my smell disorder and now my smell and taste is very good so my depression about that is gone.

I am always trying some alternative methods BTW which gives temporary relief. I also have non-vertigo dizziness and if pain and dizziness gets worse then I take little bit of Xanax which sure works. Ibuprofen works but not that good as Xanax and doctors warns about stomach bleeding if I take too much of Ibuprofen.

I am still looking something for pain................

[TooStressed]

I decided to go off the Gabapentin Saturday night and already feel better. Yep, it was definitely making my headaches worse. I'm going to find another neurologist. I'm batting .000 after two neurologists, hopefully a third time's a charm.

[Eowyn]

Have you seen a physiatrist yet? My neurologist was useless, too, as was the psychiatrist. The physiatrist helped most of anybody.

[TooStressed]

Hmmm, I never thought about a psychiatrist. I was able to get an appointment with a new neurologist this afternoon. I'm scheduled for next Wednesday. We'll see how that goes. If he pulls out a shovel and starts flinging BS at me, I'll look into the psychiatrist. Thanks for the advice. I'm also leaning towards the chinese medicine approach. Acupunture and herbs. Little worried about taking strange herbs though and their side effects. Especially while taking Amitriptyline.

[Eowyn]

The useful doctor was a PHYSIATRIST. They are specialists in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

You can find one here: http://www.aapmr.org/patients/findph...s/default.aspx

Although that listing does not seem to be exhaustive (my doctor is not listed on that site).