Alternatingly, gabapentin either works great and has barely noticeable withdrawal, or a hellish acid reflux suffering tablet with the worst withdrawal in the world and I am once again a victim of the opioid crisis.

My doctor suggested gabapentin when I asked for an anxiety med, cool idea or no? It’s an off-label use so I might be a victim again. My impression so far is that it feels like a very lightweight version of loprazolam, goofy and relaxed. I’m still stimming ofc but I’m also calmly vibing, and I can still feel my emotions which is nice. Pls tell me how over it is ✨

          • rayne [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Np. There’s only two drugs that really target the same receptors (pregabilin is that other). And both bypass the liver, so don’t interfere with other drug metabolism.

            Melatonin, weed, and gabapentin tend to irritate my tinitus. And mixing it with pain killers can cause unpleasant numbing. Mixing with alcohol I tend to have to nap.

            But nothing dangerouse in my experience and I’ve abused my doses and been pretty reckless with mixing tbh.

        • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.netOP
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          1 year ago

          Yeah I ain’t taking benzos fuck that shit. Tried em once, their capacity to make you feel pleasantly useless is too good. I am odd about withdrawal, I had no trouble coming off tramadol but sertraline is one of the worst things ever for it, jfc.

          Good to know gabapentin has an upper limit, nice. Also I will not take pregabalin! Ty!

          Oh right okay, it’s only 100mg of gabapentin to start, and then 200 if it goes well. I am small so I get prescribed small doses a lot! I am young but above drinking age. Makes sense melatonin would be safe given it’s naturally produced in the body, and I don’t drive which is good. Respiratory depression sounds kinda scary…

          Uh which questions specifically, but yeah I should make a list to bug my doctor with. I’m usually good about other stuff, I tend to do my own research a lil too much.

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Got put on it for neuropathic pain once and it just made me lethargic and sleepy. Yeah the pain was slightly lessened, but I couldn’t do anything. I was then quickly taken off it and another medication was tried.

    • MaeBorowski [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I’m on it for neuropathic pain as well and had a similar experience for a while. The sleepiness and lethargy stopped being a problem after I was on it for a bit, but the efficacy of its painkilling (and anxiolytic) properties also mostly wore off. I could go up quite a bit in dose, and have as a rare occasional thing, but don’t really want to go down that route, as I’m already worried about withdrawal if/when I do go off. Mind if I ask if any following meds you tried worked well?

      • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Synthetic opioids like tramadol work the best in terms of pain relief for me, but the side effects are pretty huge, so I only use them during really bad pain episodes. For more minor common pain where the neuropathic component isn’t that bad, I take a NSAID called celecoxib.

  • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Well, they prescribed my dog gabapentin because she’s anxious and all it does is make her the world’s sleepiest hound

    Personally, don’t like having her zonked out 20 hours of the day, but then again I also doubt my dog has actual anxiety problems (pretty sure the people who left her at the shelter lied)

  • naom3 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    and I can still feel my emotions which is nice

    An anti-anxiety that lets you feel emotions would be pretty rad ngl

    • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.netOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah it would, will post more if anything funny happens. Had a huge downward moodswing just half an hour ago, adjustment periods and all.

  • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    Gabapentin is fine at low doses, anything below 600mg a day is fairly low. Just don’t let someone give you more than a gram a day, because the withdrawals do become quite terrible at high doses. Don’t let your dose be raised too quickly. Most doctors are pretty good about this, but your dose should only go up like once or twice in a year, and it shouldn’t be a huge bump

      • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.net
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        11 months ago

        Yeah that sounds perfectly reasonable. Like I said, as long as you’re below 1000mg a day you’ll be fine. Gabapentinoids are extremely similar to alcohol in how they actually act in your brain, so at low doses they’re perfectly manageable dependency wise. You’ll probably notice your tolerance increases fairly quickly with the medicine, however the medical effects of it don’t start lessening for quite a while so you’ll be good there. If you’re getting it for anxiety, they should keep you at a fairly low dose, 600mg-900mg a day should be the most you ever get. You’ll find a sweet spot on them eventually and probably just stay at that dose because Gabapentin is a very different drug depending on the dose you take. It’s very interesting imo.

        I’m probably one of the people you heard saying Gabapentinoid withdrawal is terrible, but I was dosing myself on them so my tolerance climbed to the equivalent of about 4000-5000mg a day. At those doses, it truly is the worst withdrawal, but the first time I quit it my tolerance was only around 1000mg a day and it was pretty manageable. A little bit of insomnia and physical anxiety but nothing you can’t just breathe through.