Anyone have experience with these. I have experienced bad withdrawl even when not taking for a day. Doctor has me on due to bipolar like symptoms. Some say these should be controlled.
I have been prescribed Gabapentin in the past for both bipolar I and back pain/spasms. In neither case did it have any effect. I don’t recall having to titrate down doses, or having any adverse effects. However, psychotropic medications can have wildly differing effects depending on the individual.
Wikipedia has some more information.
You should probably talk to your doctor. There are many different meds for bipolar and Gabapentin is an off-label and possibly questionable choice, unless other more standard meds have not worked for you. Lithium, Depakote, Lamictal, Abilify et al are more standard bipolar meds.
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I am using it now for neuropathy. I didn’t know it was used for other things. I would agree that giving it to you was off-label.
I started with “take 3 at bedtime” and it screwed me up badly. I could not get out of bed in the morning and when I did, I couldn’t balance myself. Now I take 600mg once, when the pain is bad. It takes the edge off. Sometimes I’m just numb instead of burning so I don’t take it as prescribed, but only when it starts to hurt. So I don’t take it on a regular schedule and I am not addicted.
What is it exactly about the medicine’s effect that you are addicted to? Neurontin isnt a medication that produces a “high” in any familiar sense.
I have always been suspicious of Neurontin. Its only approved use is as an anti-epileptic. Pfizer conducted a massive, illegal and fraudulent campaign to promote the drug for a wide variety of off-label uses. They planted articles in medical journals and paid off doctors to promote the drug for a variety of conditions without any proof that it was effective for those conditions.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Huge-penalty-in-drug-fraud-Pfizer-settles-2759293.php
They were found guilty of a couple of felonies and paid huge fines, but the drug continues to be prescribed off-label for conditions other than epilepsy with no clinical evidence of effectiveness.
Actually for many people it is. Google neurontin high. It’s also sold on the black market for recreational use; you can also google that.
Huh. That’s atypical then. Never heard of it being abused. I have heard of it causing all sorts pf problematic side effects though. I know in my personal experience, it had no effect whatsoever except some appetite increase. (Pretty much anything can be combined with “__high” and reults can be found on google).
If you’ve been taking it for a while you shouldnt just stop taking it for a whole day, taper off slowly. Reduce by one pill a dose or if it’s in tablet form cut it in half and take whatever would be a reduced dose. Take the reduced dose for a least a week.
I took it for neuropathy for about a year and did have a high at first but (sadly)it wore off after a few weeks. It worked very well for my neuropathy pain but I started having side effects - vertigo, racing thoughts, anxiety - at it was time to get off it. I weaned myself very slowly.
Gabapentin’s now generic so nobody’s making a fortune off of it. I think Pfizer was dreaming up new uses to maximize profits before they lost patent protection. It was prescribed for my back pain and I’m not sure it helps other than to take the edge off. I think it’s prescribed instead of the “stronger” drugs which are more subject to abuse. It does mostly prevent restless leg syndrome caused by taking Zoloft. Many docs aren’t even aware of that use for it. I also take 500 mg Magnesium for the RLS (not at the same time, they interact.)
In my experience, the only “high” was feeling a little loopy the first time or two I took it. I adjusted to it very quickly. Maybe if you only took it rarely you might feel something, but I wouldn’t call it anything like “fun”. I’m pretty sure there are some young kids who will convince themselves that almost any prescription drug can give them a high. Paying good money for a placebo effect. (Maybe I should start selling sugar pills on the street corner. ;))
The one time I discontinued Gabapentin for a while, I didn’t feel any withdrawal.
I prescribe a fair amount of gabapentin, 90% of it for neuropathic pain, 10% of it for seizure disorders. It’s definitely effective and appropriate for neuropathy, despite any lack of labeling.
The psychiatrists in our system rarely use it for mental health disorders, though for tough patients who have failed other drugs it’s sometimes an option.
Regarding withdrawal: It’s really only a concern for folks with seizure disorders, as a too rapid discontinuation can provoke seizures. Otherwise, I don’t hesitate to take most patients off abruptly.
Regarding abuse: I serve a population which abuses virtually any abusable drug. And a lot of drugs that just sound like they can be abused (normodyne (labetolol) sounds like norco (hydrocodone) so let’s take a bunch of that! Oops, death.) We’ve not had problems with gabapentin abuse in our system. Not so for pregabalin, a relative of gabapentin. So I suppose there’s potential to abuse gabapentin in a few susceptible individuals. But we’ve had more trouble with clonidine and nifedipine abuse, frankly.
There is a huge black market for gabapentin in my area. It drives our office crazy–the same young sketchy people who used to come in asking for hydrocodone and Xanax are now coming in asking for Neurontin and calling nonstop for early refills. This has always been around in the background, but it’s been way worse in the last year or so.
I’ve tried to find out what people do with it, and the people who have talked to me say that when you take a really whopping dose of it it produces a drunk-like high. It makes me want to introduce these people to my friend bourbon.
What we were taught in nursing school was that as it’s a synthetic neurotransmitter, sometimes when you take it, particularly for a long time, your body will adjust and make less of its own corresponding neurotransmitter. So if you take it for a while, at a high dose, abrupt discontinuation can cause neurological symptoms that look a whole lot like withdrawal: anxiety, jitters, headaches and even hallucinations. In the worst case, it may trigger seizures, because your body hasn’t gotten the note that it needs to start making its own again. Withdrawal Symptoms After Gabapentin Discontinuation
Most of the docs I work with want to taper the dose down to prevent this risk, unless the person is in the hospital or another environment where close observation and med adjustment is possible if needed.
Why isn’t “looking a whole lot like withdrawal” not really withdrawal?
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
{snip} So if you take it for a while, at a high dose, abrupt discontinuation can cause neurological symptoms that look a whole lot like withdrawal: anxiety, jitters, headaches and even hallucinations. In the worst case, it may trigger seizures, because your body hasn’t gotten the note that it needs to start making its own again. {snip}
[/QUOTE]
I take Gabapentin because I do not respond to any of the classes of meds commonly prescribed for my condition. (This is also the case for a relative of mine.) My Gabapentin use is considered “off-label”. I take the highest daily dose recommended for my sex/age/weight.
When I stop taking it cold turkey (because I’m broke and can’t afford a refill), I get the withdrawal symptoms you listed. I do not suffer from seizure disorder(s). FWIW, I don’t get high off Gabapentin. In fact, if I take too much, I respond as though I’ve consumed a pot of coffee. Not pleasant!
I have a prescription for neuropathy - but seldom take it unless I flare up because one of the warnings on the label is an increase in depression and suicidal ideation. Don’t need more of that in my life. Seems like an odd choice for bi-polar - unless you’ve tried other things.
Because the physiology is different from what we generally call withdrawal - those symptoms of quitting opiates or alcohol that respond to benzodiazepines as treatment. It’s a distinction that doesn’t mean a whole lot to not-medical-people, but I didn’t want to force **Qadgop **into a lecture, because he specializes in this stuff. 
[QUOTE=Drug withdrawal - Wikipedia]
Although withdrawal symptoms are often associated with the use of recreational drugs, many drugs have a profound effect on the user when stopped. When withdrawal from any medication occurs it can be harmful or even fatal; hence prescription warning labels explicitly saying not to discontinue the drug without doctor approval. However, the symptoms associated with sudden discontinuation of many prescription medications are, due to differences in the underlying physiology, and the absence of cravings, not properly considered “withdrawal”.
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I take it for neuropathy and have never had any problems with it, and have never experienced a high.
For me, it’s been a miracle drug. It really gets rid of the nerve pain. My husband has started taking it for his back, and the first day it knocked him out. After that, no problems, except that he is not getting the relief I am getting.
I’ve run across anecdotes from seedier areas of the internet about using wickedly high doses to augment the high from opioids, benzodiazepines, z-drugs (zolpi, zopi, zalep), and marijuana, and also to blunt the withdrawal effects from some of the above. We had one patient who I suspected was doing that or selling it (seeing 3 different doctors who were all prescribing it, getting it filled weekly when his supplies should have lasted for 30 days, etc) who was not happy when I refused to fill and made a note to have my day-shift colleagues call his doctors to inform them of this.
My mom is on it for neuropathic pain, and she definitely was titrated up and was told to titrate down. Not a long one, but still titration. And my own experience is that you need to titrate any medicine that messes with the GABA system if you don’t want rebound anxiety. People with mental illnesses are the ones that are most affected.