[Mrs M]

Hi Everyone

Hope you are all doing well.

Just wanted to get some advice on the medication 'gabapentin'. Have any of you lovely people had any experience with this medication, good or bad?

My GP has prescribed me it today for the pain. I have to start with 1 300mg on day 1. Then 1 twice a day on day 2 going to 3 times a day on the 3rd day onwards!

Tried to google but haven't found much out. I'm not very good with meds and therefore would like to know in advance what they are possibly like:hehe:

The last lot of meds I had that didn't agree were amitriptyline and the docs took me off them.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Mrs M x

 

[Katharine]

Hello Mrs M,

I don't have any personal experience of Gabapentin. It doesn't seem to be on my doc's list of usual meds (I'm in Belgium) but several people here take it, apparently to good effect.

I just wanted to point out that meds are just SO individual. You can read up all you like (and sometimes half scare yourself to death) and listen to others but, at the end of the day, you have to try it with a positive attitude and see if it works.

As an example I was put on cymbalta for neuropathic pain (Lyrica is not reimbursed here unless you have fibro or diabetes) and it made me so violently nauseous and headachy that I had to stop it after two days. On the other hand, there are people here who are on cymbalta and have had no side effects and indeed far prefer it to many alternatives. Finally I was tried on tegretol (carbamazepine) which my neuro says works great for some people and has no effect on others. For me it worked beautifully and I can now stand for a while (maybe not long but infinitely better ).

My attitude may be irresponsible but I never want to be influenced by that scary piece of paper in the box and I just take my meds with a positive attitude. If I then notice side effects or don't feel right, I look up the paper. My doc has usually told me of anything serious that might happen and that I have to look out for and I have a very good chemist who knows all the meds I'm on and whether a new one would have any possible bad interaction.

Obviously that's what works for me and I DO have a good team of docs that I trust!
I'm sure plenty of gabapentin users will be along to give you more informed info. I'm wondering here if that building up process is slow enough?

Katharine

 

[lin]

i take it 800mg three times a day its ok good luck

 

[bamagirl79]

I take 600mg 3 times a day....Good luck with it
Bamagirl79

 

[Lily]

Hi Mrs M,

Gabapentin is the generic name, you may find it mentioned here under it's brand name Neurontin. Many of us take it.

I take 400mg x3 daily and it's been great for me. I crept up a bit slower than you are though, so there's always that option if it seems to be giving you initial problems (like so many of our meds). Like any of those drugs a slow increase can be good and any side effects should disappear usually within a month if you have any. Luckily I had none and I'm pretty sensitive to meds.

As Katharine says meds are so individual, what one can take another can't and vice versa. It's a case of try it and see.

Good luck :luck:
love
Lily

 

[Mrs M]

Hi to all!

Thanks for your replies they are very muched welcomed.

Katherine and Lily you both mention about them creeping up a little quick. I know you are not doctors but would appreciate your advice on how I maybe could adjust the dose to suit me and how gradually I should up them. Don't worry if you feel you don't want to advise I understand

I think maybe I'm going to give them a go!

Also just to ask will there be any problems me starting these as I'm due to have a colonoscopy in a couple of weeks?

Thanks

Mrs M x

 

[Lily]

Hi Mrs. M.

I'm reluctant to advise as you mention because I don't know what other meds you take and what time of the day you take them...........

however I'd start with 300mg once a day for a week, then add the next 300mg the following week and in the third week take the full 3 doses. If at any stage you are having problems then I'd delay the creeping up. Even that is faster than I crept up but my case was different because at the same time I was weaning off another neuro drug, so we needed to see what was what and how much I could tolerate.

love
Lily

 

[Mrs M]

Hi Lily and thankyou!

Spoke it over with my mum today and we both said the same as yourself
The only other meds I'm on is Colofac for my IBS.


Will let you know how things go.

Mrs M x

 

[Nutty]

I am taking gabapentin as well 700mg 3 times a day. I was switch to this drug after I experienced extreme swelling on Lyrica. The same happened with the gabapentin, so I was put on bed rest until the swelling went down. Since then I've worn support hose and that sort of keeps it under control. I also had severe bowel issues once I got to a certain dose. It only lasted for a day or so and I was fine.

Like it has been mentioned, drug reactions are different for everyone. But, I do recommend that you increase the dose slowly. When I had my problems in the hospital, they were increasing it every other day, which I think was too fast.

Good luck.

Nutty

 

[Mrs M]

Hi Nutty

thanks for your advice!

I think that it's the best way to go uping them slowly as I really am terrible with medication

Mrs M x

 

[raggedyann1]

Mrs. M,

I have been on Gabapentin for 5 1/2 years now. I don't know why but I was started on 100mg a day. My doctor had me increase by 100mg per week until I reached 600mg. I had another doctor push me to take higher doses but my body just couldn;t tolerate more than 600mg. My rheumatologist changed it to just once a day at night as even 300mg in the morning was making me groggy throughout the day. This was 5 months after starting it. Even though it doesn't make sense 1 dose a day really makes a huge difference with my Fibromyalgia pain. My other pain is taken care of with good old narcotic pain meds.

good luck,
Karen

 

[Mrs M]

Hi Karen

Thankyou for sharing your experience.

I'm going to start the gabapentin at the weekend as my Hubby will have broke up from work for a week so if I'm a little bit iffy with it I've got somebody there!

Is it best taken at night?

Mrs M x

 

[Lily]

Hi,

I guess that a night time dose would be a good one to start off with, you should sleep through any problems then

Ideally it's best taken 3 x daily as it has a short half-life. Believe me it does! I missed my lunchtime dose two days ago and I could barely move yesterday when I got out of bed. Well I barely got out of bed :lol: Actually it wasn't funny I was in tears and it's been a while since that happened due to pain.

love
Lily

 

[Mrs M]

hi everyone

Just a quick update.

Started the gabapentin a week ago and things don't seem too bad. Morning after I'd had my first pill I felt terrible and was really quite dizzy although on the plus side I wasn't woken by painful knees, elbows or back pain. Yippeeee!

The dizzyness is still there on a morning and I'm sticking to just the one pill on a night for the time being.
I must say on Wednesday evening around 2 hours after taking the pill I did have awful chest pain in my right side along with pain in my arm which was a little frightening. Hubby came and sat with me until it passed. Could that have being due to me having a beechams powder that afternoon to ease some of my aches?

Can I ask has anybody on these meds suffered with constipation? For a few days now I've not had my usual routine:lol: so hoping it's going to get better:hehe:

Anyway thanks for reading.

Have a great weekend

Mrs M x

 

[Zoi]

Hey there,

What wonderful news! So glad to hear you're feeling better already!!!! Hope it continues and that that dizzyness goes away soon too! :thumbs:

Re your constipation question: I don't have any personal experience with gabapentin but I did look online a little bit and constipation does seem to be listed as a side-effect:

http://www.medicinenet.com/gabapentin-oral/article.htm

Of course, as with all meds, about a thousand other things are listed as possible side-effects too so I don't really know if it is a common side-effect or not... Hopefully someone will come along soon who knows more about it! If it continues though you could try increasing your fibre intake for a couple of days as that can help and if it doesn't resolve you may want to let your doctor know as well as ask if it could be related to the gabapentin or not.

Long may your newfound improvement last!!!! :grouphug2: :fingers: :bigsmile:

:flowery:

Zoi

 

[Lily]

Hi Mrs. M,

Looking back when I first started Gabapentin I was a bit constipated for a few days, and the same thing happened each time I raised my dose but it all settled very quickly for me. Hope the same is true for you.

I wasn't familiar with Beechams powders, so went and looked it up. If I got the correct one then it has panadeine, phenylephrine and caffeine in it.
The panadeine itself is probably all you need to help your aches and pains, the other two ingredients could cause you problems. In particular it's possible the phenylephrine caused constriction of your blood vessels (that's what it does and why it's good for hayfever and sinus problems). The blood vessel restriction probably caused the chest pain you experienced (the caffeine probably didn't help either, there's 25mg of it in there ).

If possible stick to plain panadol and if that's not enough then your doc could prescribe panadeine forte or something for your worst times. I always have it on standby, but to be honest I get more relief and no problems with things like Fiorinal which contains codeine, muscle relaxer and a small amount of antihistamine. Seems to help me out in those times I need a little more.

Hope this helps,

love
Lily

 

[Mrs M]

Thanks you two

Hi Zoi and thanks for the link. When I tried to google the meds before I took them I never came across this site and it's great for info.

Lily I think I'll stay away from the beechams! Must say I used to take panadol but they seemed to stop working but I swore by them as they always helped and they were gentle on my tummy. Maybe I should try something else or when I up my dose of gabapentin I won't need anything else.

Thanks and have a great day

Mrs M x

 

[LaurieC]

Hi ,
I take it for nurve damage and I did not realize how much it realy worked till I droped my bottle on the floor on a holliday weekend and could not get it refilled and boy did my pain increase by 10 fold so I saw then how well it was working and I did not even know it. It made me tired alot at first but after a while it leveled off and I was not so tired. Good Luck

LauireC