Posted by Nickengland on October 31, 2005, at 11:17:25 [reposted on November 1, 2005, at 6:25:17 | original URL]
In reply to Re: please be civil : neurontin, plz read., posted by lunesta on October 31, 2005, at 4:45:40
Hi lunesta
Sorry to hear about your bad experiences with Neurontin (Gabapentin) It is one hell of a pain in the *ss to say the least when you take a drug to make you feel better, gain some relief and then the oppisite happens and the drug actually makes you worse.
I've had this myself, funnily enough (I have bipolar) and the actual 'approved' drugs (well as far as I know Lamictal isn't approved for bipolar depression in the UK, but it is in the US from what I understand) anyway when I took Lamictal the drug to me was as close to i've felt to being poisened, I was quite literally shaking, sweating, and at the same time was extreamly anxious and somewhat suicidal, or at least because of the effects of the drug I was getting those thoughts (but strangely there was a weird lift in my mood, but not a healthy one) - I was taking that drug in the depressed phase, and for me it made me worse so I stopped it ~ however I've read all over the internet and on here that the drug is excellent for treating depression people with or without bipolar, so like many, many of these drugs, the benzo's for example, quite literally a life saver for one person, and a potentially life threatening for another...
>but is finally serious now that so many people have had suicides or sudden death or attempted suicides and many other adverse serious problems.
This reminds me of a drug which has recieved lots of press over here about increased suicides / sucidal indealation and behaviour, the antidepressant Seroxat/Paxil - paroxetine. In a similar sense I think now that carries some kind of black box warning about increased suicidal behaviour, which is quite a contridiction in a sense as in one way when treating severe depression thats what it is attempting to prevent - not increase! Perhaps Neurontin/Gabapentin will in the future carry the same warning..
>gabapentin is one of the current drugs being considered to be taken off the market completely
Would you be able to offer any links to information about that?
>neurontin is in the top 5 of suicide rates/attempts of all FDA approved drugs.
Do you know what is in the top four?
With Paxil, according to this site the suicide rates were -
Accordingly, the results show that between 1993-2002, there were 6,000 and 19,000 persons in the US who were victims of Paxil-induced suicide
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/06/07.php
With Neurontin, according to the same site, the suicide rates were -
The FDA adverse drug event database, MedWatch, has received 258 documented fatal suicide reports involving patients prescribed Neurontin, for mostly unapproved, off-label uses
But ~
MedWatch reports represent only 1% to 10% of the actual adverse drug effects. Thus, 258 completed suicides represent between 2,580 suicides and 25,800 suicides attributed to Neurontin.
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/04/06.php
The drugs from what I can see and the rates on the site show date starting from around 92 - 93' ? Although I could be wrong..
Its weird, but when reading about benzodiazepines when they were first introduced everyone seemed to think that were the cure all for everything, then slowly but surely the stories of addiction and so on started to appear and then people thought diferently. The cycle sometimes starts to continue that now and again they are safe again - and then you here they're very dangerous.I don't know, I take Gabapentin and for me its probably the best psychiatric drug i've ever taken, Lamictal was one of the worst. When reading on babble I've sometimes seen that for some people Gabapentin is the worst thing for them, but yet Lamictal was the best. One mans poisen within psychiatric medication could well be another mans potential life saver? (or womans ;-)
It is sad about all the marketing to boost profits though, I read they had to pay $430 million when pleading guilty for.
Kind regards
Nick
poster:Nickengland
thread:572445
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051031/msgs/574052.html