jubei: please help, trouble with gabapentin

[jubei]

Hi. I never use forums on the Internet but I'm so desperate I don't know what to do. I think my situation is complicated and right now I feel extremely bad but I'm trying to focus so I can try to say what's been going on. I'm just suffering unimaginably and I'm hoping by some miracle someone can help me.

 

First of all I live in western Massachusetts and I'm on disability. My insurance is Masshealth and I'm in my 30s.

 

Sorry I don't feel good right now at all as I type this and I'm going to try my best.

 

A long time ago I got tardive akathisia from Geodon and it never fully went away but it improved a lot over the years. It's the worst thing I ever felt. I was put on diazepam for it and that's all I was on from 2005-2011 and I improved but was eventually taken off. The next year 2012 I was doing really bad I think due primarily to getting off of diazepam and quickly, my nervous system was and still is really sensitive. I was eventually put on ativan and got better. The doctor wanted to put me on another medicine but I didn't take it because I was afraid of drug side-effects, so I've been taking just ativan from 2012 till now. Except for in November when I started taking gabapentin and everything seemed to have fallen apart because of gabapentin. 

 

Back to the ativan though. The doctor started tapering me off of it really slowly about a year ago. I was on 3mg a day initially and I dropped eventually to .5mg. I stayed on that dosage for many months and was doing relatively ok, though my nervous system is still sensitive. This past summer I started to get nerve pain from prostatitis. I was getting it for months and it was really hard to deal with sometimes. The psychiatrist I see who prescribes me ativan ended up giving me gabapentin also because he said it could help with anxiety and with getting off of ativan, but I also read that gabapentin can help with nerve pain so I ended up wanting to take it for that too.

 

This part I think gets complicated. I was put on 100mg of gabapentin 3 times a day. Initially for the first week I felt relatively ok. I could've sworn though sometimes that I felt tightness in the chest a little that I never get and thought that it was because of gabapentin but I wasn't sure and it was sorta subtle feeling. I then asked the doctor if the dose could be increased, mainly because of nerve pain I still felt. I was put on 300mg 3 times a day and this is when things got bad. The first day I took 300mg gabapentin in the afternoon and evening I felt alright and it felt like it was sedating me and stronger than the 100mg does. Then I took a dose of it the next morning and felt alright, but when I took a dose of it around the afternoon time, I'm not sure what happened exactly. I was laying down and I got what I think was a pvc which I get sometimes but this one was really strong; I hadn't gotten one like that in many years. Then suddenly my body just became really nervous, heart racing, had to go to the bathroom and had diarrhea. I never ever feel this way. I suspected it was because of the gabapentin somehow but I didn't know. So I thought because I was on it for only about 8 days I could just get off of it quickly. I'm trying to remember exactly but I think the next dose I took was 150mg, and then the next morning I just 100mg but I didn't take the afternoon dose. A few hours after that I was feeling extremely bad like I never feel, crying and on the verge of panic. I'm never like this. So I took 100mg of gabapentin and it seemed to make things better and I was going through such a hard time that unfortunately I increased my dose of ativan, which I feel really awful about because I felt like I had made such progress, so I started taking .5mg of ativan 3 times a day.

 

The next day, I kept taking the original dose at 100mg 3x day. The problem now though was that it seemed like somehow the tardive akathisia I have had for 15 years which got much much better had now gotten worse. It got so bad that I didn't know what to do but remembered reading how an anticholinergic like benadryl could help relieve it. So I took some of liquid zzzquil which is basically benadryl I think, and I took about 15ml of it or slightly less. It seemed to help a little. And so for the next 3 or 4 days I kept doing this when the akathisia was getting unbearable and it seemed to help. Somehow I was getting better and didn't have to keep taking benadryl but I was still on 100mg of gabapentin 3 times a day and ativan .5mg 3 times a day. I seemed to be doing better the last week of November and about the start of December. But somehow I started doing worse again. Still taking the same dosages of things, but it felt like I was really sensitive to anxious situations, as if my body got messed up by gabapentin or something. I started to feel on the verge of panic sometimes and I never ever feel that way. I really feel that what is going on is somehow drug-induced. So I started taking benadryl again about once a day and 15ml when things got bad but it didn't seem to help quite as well as before and my body seemed to be a bit worse. I thought that maybe it was the gabapentin effecting my body in a bad way so about I think on December 9th I tried reducing the afternoon dose to 50mg, to see if I could taper off of gabapentin slowly. I did sort've ok that day but the next day by the afternoon time I felt way worse than I did before, so I ended up taking the normal dose and realized that I couldn't even taper the thing. On the 10th and 11th I think I was still taking benadryl once a day about, but I've been feeling way worse now. I stopped taking benadryl yesterday and I think I did even worse because of it. Often times lately I've been on the verge of going to the ER, it's been extremely bad.

 

What I was feeling and still feel is like drug withdrawal I felt, but I couldn't tell if it was gabapentin or from benadryl or a combination or if somehow everything is effecting the ativan withdrawal I was getting from still trying to get off of it for a year. I thought that maybe when I went down from 300mg to 100mg it was too fast even though I was on 300mgs for only like a day. So last night and this morning I started taking 300mgs of gabapentin but it barely made things better.

 

So I have no idea what to do now. This is I think the worst I've ever felt in my life now. I don't know what to do and I'm really desperate. I've been suffering unimaginably especially the last week. I don't know if I should go back to the 100mg of gabapentin 3xday then, if the 300mg isn't even doing anything? Do I take benadryl again? The akathisia is unbearable a lot and I'm on the verge of panic a lot. I have trouble eating and doing anything. I managed to write this before I think I start feeling worse again.

 

I apologize if what I wrote is unclear or confusing or too long.

 

I was 1,000 times better before the gabapentin. Somehow it messed me up so bad it seems. I even tried telling my doctor about this but he said that gabapentin is easy to get off of.

 

Please someone help I don't know what to do and I've been suffering for so long. The only thing that seemed to have helped so far was liquid Zzzquil (which is what I meant when I said benadryl).

 

edit: sorry I didn't know what to do so I'm just going to take some of the zzzquil again, the sensations i'm feeling is unbearable right now. I really don't want to take the stuff but I don't know what else to do.

Edited December 14, 2019 by jubei

[Altostrata]

Welcome, jubei.

 

On 12/14/2019 at 5:00 AM, jubei said:

I've been taking just ativan from 2012 till now. Except for in November when I started taking gabapentin and everything seemed to have fallen apart because of gabapentin. 

 

How did you go off Ativan at the end? When did you stop taking Ativan and start taking gabapentin?

 

Are you taking any other drugs? Please put ALL your drugs in the Drug Interactions Checker https://www.drugs.com/drug_interactions.php
and copy and paste the results or a link to them in this topic.

 

On 12/14/2019 at 5:00 AM, jubei said:

Then suddenly my body just became really nervous, heart racing, had to go to the bathroom and had diarrhea. I never ever feel this way. I suspected it was because of the gabapentin somehow but I didn't know. So I thought because I was on it for only about 8 days I could just get off of it quickly. I'm trying to remember exactly but I think the next dose I took was 150mg, and then the next morning I just 100mg but I didn't take the afternoon dose. A few hours after that I was feeling extremely bad like I never feel, crying and on the verge of panic. I'm never like this. So I took 100mg of gabapentin and it seemed to make things better and I was going through such a hard time that unfortunately I increased my dose of ativan, which I feel really awful about because I felt like I had made such progress, so I started taking .5mg of ativan 3 times a day.

 

See drugs.com for adverse reactions to gabapentin. Were you taking Ativan all the time you were taking gabapentin? How much Ativan, how many times a day?

 

On 12/14/2019 at 5:00 AM, jubei said:

The problem now though was that it seemed like somehow the tardive akathisia I have had for 15 years which got much much better had now gotten worse.

 

What does this feel like?

 

You may be feeling adverse effects of your drugs, rather than withdrawal. Please keep daily notes of times of day you take your drugs, their dosages, and your symptoms throughout the day. You can post 24 hours of notes at a time in this topic, with a simple list format with time of day on the left and notation (symptom or drug and dosage) on the right.

[Sassenach]

Hi Jubei

On 12/15/2019 at 6:57 PM, Altostrata said:

You may be feeling adverse effects of your drugs, rather than withdrawal. Please keep daily notes of times of day you take your drugs, their dosages, and your symptoms throughout the day. You can post 24 hours of notes at a time in this topic, with a simple list format with time of day on the left and notation (symptom or drug and dosage) on the right.

Alto is looking for the following format.

Numbers are for severity of symptoms on a scale of 0-10.

DATE:

 

6 a.m. Woke with anxiety 5
8 a.m. Took 2.5mg Lexapro
10 a.m. Stomach is upset
10:30 a.m. Ate breakfast
11:35 a.m. Got a headache, lasted one hour
12:35 p.m. Ate lunch
4 p.m. Feel a bit better
5 p.m. Took 2.5mg Lexapro
6 p.m. Ate dinner
9:20 p.m. Headache 3
10:00 p.m. Took 50mg Seroquel
10:20 p.m. Feeling dizzy 6
10:30 p.m. Fell asleep
2:30 a.m. Woke, took 3mg Ambien (NOT "took 1/2 tablet Ambien")
2:45 a.m. Fell asleep
4:30 a.m. Woke but got back to sleep

 

Sassenach