zonegran-anyone else????

[blondemama50]

hi everyone! This is a new med. the pain center here,u.s., has put me on for the extreme leg pains at night. Zonegran-100mg. 2 capsules at bedtime. It does seem to work when i take it, but after a wk. seems to not work.! I then will skip a wk. then it works again!!!!!!! Does anyone know of this med????? Has any tried it before? Please let me know, as I am quite leery of taking "experimental" drugs for anything. But the hydrocodone was not helping the leg pain! Thanks, hope to hear from someone soon,Lynn p.s.it's supposed to be an anti-seizure drug.

[peonyprincess]

Sorry to hear that you are having problems. I TOTALLY understand!! My leg pains get so bad at night that I swear it is going to drive me mad. I wiggle my legs back and forth and I am constantly up and down at night until I finally take a couple of pain pills and then and only then can I go to sleep. My pain pills are either Lortab or Demerol, depends on how bad the pain is. I take 20mg of Flexeril at night that does seem to help. I have ran out of it in the past and noticed a difference immediately. I also will take Xanax 0.5mg depending on how "wound up" I am. I do use a heating blanket and even sometimes add in a heating pad. Some nights are good and some nights are terrible and I want to sit there and just cry.

If the medication isn't helping, do not stress yourself and tolerate unnecessary pain. Contact your doctor and explain to him/her what is going on and see if you cannot get some other medication. I hope you find the relief that you need and deserve.

Nancy

[blondemama50]

thank you, i do take the flexeril, but the side effects are just too bad! with the zonegran there are no morning after blahs my doc says that the xanax are too addicting, yet the codiene is much more, dont understand! I did take a xanax-my husbands, last night and slept through the night! I guess i will just have to tell him how it worked on me and hope for the best! thanks again, lynn

[peonyprincess]

Your physician is correct....................Xanax can be addicting, however, I have been presribed Xanax for the last 4 years and do not take it on a regular basis. Anything stronger than a Tylenol can be addicting, it is up to you and your physician to regulate the medication and to use common sense oh when to medicate and when not too. I feel very lucky here, as I do not always have to take a Xanax, Lortab or Demerol, sometimes Tylenol does the trick just fine. However, if I need the extra boost, I certainly take it. With any medication, there are potenial problems looming, just use your head and keep an open communication with your physician and all will be well. I am glad to here that you had a good nights sleep!!

Nancy

[raggedyann1]

Blondemama,

I hate the addicting word. At the top of this forum there is an article that talks about the difference between dependence and addiction. When we take medications to deal with pain we rarely become addicted to them but we do become dependent. If your doctor will not prescribe meds like xanax to you then ask for a referal to a pain management doctor. I take some pretty strong narcotic medications but I am not addicted to them, they do help my pain levels to drop some so that I can live more of my life. There are other medications like tricyclic anti-depressants that are used more for sleep and pain control than they are for depression. I take one of them as part of my pain control medication cocktail. So there are multiple options available to us today to get our pain under control. The first thing to look at is whether your lupus is being adequately controlled and then at pain medications to help with pain that is not being taken care of with our lupus medications.

As for the medication that you can only take every other week. Sometimes our bodies adjust very quickly to medications and produce more hormones to compensate for the ones being supressed. I have 2 different gastroparesis meds now as one of them my body adjusts to in just a few weeks. So the current game plan is to swap between the 2 everymonth.

Take care,
Karen

[blondemama50]

I talked to my doc. yesterday and he prescribed celexa, said that it should help with the depression and hopefully with the pain. I took one last night, 20mg., I did get to sleep and the pain wasn't quite so bad! Thanks for the comments, and I too dislike the word addicting! It makes me feel like I'm just trying to get "high" when all i want is to be able to get a little rest, body and soul!!!!!!!!! lynn