gabapentin

[tryingtodetox]

I am 57 yrs. old and have had numerous injuries to my back and recent surgeries. I have been taking vicodene for a number of years. Prescribed five a day. But of course I have found myself taking up to ten a day. Went to a new doctor today and he seems to feel the vicodene is no longer working so he had prescribed me gabapentin-100 mgs. three times a day. My concern now is withdrawing from the vocoden. doctor has suggested that I taper down to half a pill a week (of the vicodene). Of course I did not tell him how much I was taking of the vicodene.In searching this forum I have read different opions on the gabaperntin. He seems to think that it will help with the nerve pain and also may help with the withdrawals. My question is has anyone had any success in taking this medication and finding that it has in fact helped with the w/d's . I plan on lowering my dose of vicodene tomorrow and start taking the gabapentin. Doctor said it was safe to take both.  Any advice and all suggetions would be much appreciated.

I know I have to get off the vics but the w/d's scare the h*** out of me. Good Luck to all fighting this fight.

[cantfly]

good luck with it - i was on 2400mg/d of gabba and dropped to 600 in 4 days with no noticable effects and if i forget to take it its only the nerve pains that remind me (but as always we are all different so be carefull)

[tryingtodetox]

Thank you all for your responses, I am going to start taking them today and hoping for the best. Wish me Luck!!

[Franny62]

Me too. You might check into Cymbalta as it worked better for me than the Gabs!

[Dav125]

It may help. I was given that a couple months back, but it really spun me out within a week at one 300mg tablet twice and day..So my surgeon switched me to lyrica which I really can't say helped any better or not considering the nature of the problem I was having with my scaitic nerve. First of August though I got mad and just decided to quit after a fast taper on percocets which were backup pills for the oxycontins I was taking regularly..When I did that, I decided to give the gabapetin another try  Even though I now am back on pain meds due to a surgery complication that has yet to be resolved (I was three weeks away from the oxy at the time), I will say that my wd's this past round were not as brutal as a flat out ct stint I did back in April..So,   I believe the gabapentin did help some. Something else my doctor prescribed which you may want to ask yours about is clonidine. It is suppose to help restabilize your sleep.. So get some immodium, gatorade, soup, premake some sandwiches, and tough it out. When I got real depressed or caught myself staring at the clock wondering when all this would end, I got up and moved around. Doing anything to break that "sitting in one spot too long" where your thoughts can really work you over. So give it a try.

With you planning on doing the taper too, that should help lessen the wd's even more..Make sure you start taking the immodium at the first hint of stomach problems though. Also make sure you keep something on your stomach when you get close to the day your taper is over. Thats why I mentioned soup and sandwiches. Because even if I had no appetite, I had them premade so I could eat some here and there then save the rest for later. The lack of energy can really make you not want to get up and move so premaking was a big help for me. Hope that helps you some :)

[cantfly]

ummm, -i am on a low dose of gabba. 600mg/d for nerve pains. i recently came off tramadol, oxycontin and endone -while i had the physical withdrawls i didnt have any problems mentaly -they just made me so ill i hated them (i know i am very lucky in this). but having read a few things here i do wonder if the gabba helped with this????

hope this helps

[tryingtodetox]

No one with any advice on the above mentioned drug in helping to detox from vicodene???