Posted by Larry Hoover on May 2, 2005, at 9:08:56
In reply to Re: Morontin.....anybody using it? (gabapentin), posted by SLS on May 2, 2005, at 7:47:21
> > Gabapentin (Morontin....errr....Neurontin) has got to be the most
> bizarre med I've ever used. It is beyond bizarre.
>
> It definitely can be.
>
> I felt as if I were looking through a plastic film or cracked glass at dosages higher than 1200mg. Things seemed distant to me. My whole psyche felt distorted and blunted.Ya, this is the stuff I need to hear about. Even crazymeds doesn't seem to cover this aspect in any detail, despite clear evidence from clinical trials that visual/perceptual problems were relatively common.
> I wouldn't presume to explain the pharmacology behind these idiosyncratic reactions. If you discover that you cannot find an optimal dosage of gabapentin to exert a therapeutic effect without producing negative psychotropic effects, you might want to try Lyrica (pregabalin) if it becomes available or Cymbalta (duloxetine) in the meantime.
I'm not taking it for mood effects.....I was kind of hoping for a bonus round drug. Take it for neuropathy, and obtain psych effects for free. It's always been on my list of "oughta try" drugs. I suspect it could be very useful for PTSD, based on how it affects me.
Pregabalin, maybe, but why did you suggest Cymbalta?
> I don't think waiting out Neurontin at higher dosages will yield a mitigation of side effects if they are similar to what mine were. I waited at least two weeks for them to dissipate at 1800mg without success. The appearance of side effects might actually be time-dependent as well as dosage dependant.
I started at 400 t.i.d. (1200 total), but I found that I couldn't sleep on it. So, I went to 400 b.i.d., with the last dose no later than around 2 p.m. I purposely went into daily withdrawal, so I could sleep. That seemed to work okay, but I got 300 mg caps from my doc, and I've been taking 300 b.i.d. We're not talking huge doses here. The first couple of weeks were bizarre, all right, but I'm weeks into this now (6?), and I'm on a declining dose, and these distorto bizarro things come out of the blue.
My boss tried to make me feel more comfortable about missing that meeting, but you gotta know it's going to make a negative impact if something similar happens with any regularity.
> You might not have had them when you first reached the higher dosages. Once initiated, a moderate dosage reduction might not relieve them at all. In my experience, 900mg was the ideal dosage to promote positive psychotropic effects without suffering negative cognitive side effects.
I'm not giving up on it yet. I just had hoped that getting relieved of the neuropathic pain would have provided me with a substantial lift in productivity. In fact, I'd have to say my productivity has declined. And, moreover, I have to spend far more time on edit and rewrite etc. than I am accustomed to having to do. <sigh>
I appreciate your sharing your experience with me.
> I'm sorry, Larry, that I can't provide anything more definitive. I even tried to use Google and Medline to see if gabapentin might actually promote absence seizures.
Thanks, buddy. I looked at absence seizure conceptually, and it does not apply. I had full awareness during the episodes. I could respond to spoken words. It was just bizarro.
And the other thing, the visual field thing, is reminiscent of an effect of vigabatrin, but it is only very rarely described with respect to gabapentin. I seem to have a knack for rare side effects.
> I hope you can find a way to make it work for you.
>
>
> - ScottThanks. I'm just going to keep dropping the dose, slowly, and see if things don't smoothe out. I'm about at the limit of dose, though. The pain is obviously waiting for me, on the other side of 600 mg.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:492394
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050428/msgs/492598.html