United Brachial Plexus Network

Hi,

Really need to know answer whether prolong consumption of pain medication will implication other illness?

Does anyone here who is on gabapentin and so on for more than a year now and am still taking? If yes, does it affect say... your kidney etc? How do you prevent this from happening?

Anxiously waiting for your advice. Any advice is better than none.

Thanks in advance,
Hwee Yong

Hi,
I have been on Nurontin (Gabapentin) 3200mg per day for over 2 yrs without any major side affects. As it is a drug for Epileptics, I presume many people take it long term.
I am led to believe it is one of the safest out there.
I have had the occational blood test and everything seems to be OK.

I had a very interesting experince on that "safe" drug and it was right away. I got MEAN! I mean my family had no idea what was wrong but there was no hiding it. I had the most awful thoughts and before I knew it they would come flying out of my mouth. I would be shocked at some of the things I was saying. This went on for about 2 weeks before I started doing some research. Before that I was in surgical menapause and I tell you those mood swings would be considered mild at that time.
I didn't know what the drug (Neurontin) really was I just took what they told me to and hoped it would help with the pain. When the ugliness started coming out I thought maybe I was just venting the build up of emotions from pain and frustration. But when the toughts began to shock me I did some studing. First I called the doc and he said I was just going through something not meds related. So I started searching and I found that this was also used for bipolar symtoms and there was noted that in patients without bi-polar that it may cause the symtoms for the disfuntion. That is all I needed to hear.
I am now on Topamax. I don't think it works as well but the only side effect for me is weight loss. So much that I am taking a break from it now to try to gain a few back.
From this I learned that the insert with the drugs from the store is not enough for me any more. I will do real research before I try something new again.
Sorry so long but I wanted to find if this effected anyone else this way.
Shanna

Hi Gayle and Shanna,

Thanks for the advise. I have emailed my dad's doctor and he advise us how to reduce the dosage of the pain relieve. My dad will stop taking amitryptyline and panadol starting today. Will try to reduce Gabapentin from next week onwards. Hopefully nothing is wrong with his kidney. Am keeping my fingers crossed and will pray hard that the pain will go away and stop bothering him so that he can reduce his pain relieve dosage successfully.

I'm feeling better now knowing that gabapentin is not as horrible as I imagine. I will pray for a successful cut of pain relieve.

Cheers,
Hwee Yong

Dear Hwee....PLEASE make sure that your Dad reduces the amount of ametriptylene slowly over a fairly long period of time; weeks, not days. Even if you have to cut the pills into halves and quarters to reduce the amount, do it because suddenly coming off a drug as powerful as this would be very hard.

I am speaking from experience here..I stopped taking ametriptylene suddenly one day and really regretted it, it made me feel extremely ill; I had to start taking it again just to feel 'normal.'

Please feel free to email me if you have any more questions about this BlcE@aol.com

Best wishes to you and your Dad

Lizzy B :0)

Dear Lizzy,

Thank you very much for your advise. Actually my dad has started taking half the dosage of amitryptyline a few weeks ago coz I have saw your post of how you suddenly stop the pills and causes so much pain for you so I take your advise. Last night, my dad has started to stop amitryptyline totally since last night and he is feeling better.

My worry now is the reducing of gabapentine starting from next week. I really hope that we can reduce successfully coz I really hate to know that it affect my dad's kidney.

I will have to pray hard for a successful cut. How are you feeling now and are you still taking the pills? Any side effect? How do you cope?

Take-care & all the best.


Cheers,
Hwee Yong

Hi all,
How much amytyp were you taking at your peak lizzy?? I was also on amytryp but stopped taking it about a year ago. I was only on 75mg and i droped 25mg every 2 weeks or so. I think i should have done it slower though. I think the slower the better when comming off the meds. This is really applies to narcotics eg. Oxycontin or Morphine (i'm saying this from experiance).

Andrew

Hi Hwee and Andrew...I don't take anything now for the pain, I even try not to take aspirin these days for headaches and such. It took a while tho, believe me to get off all the meds.

I was given a bagful of different stuff when I left hospital...most of it I stopped taking almost immediately, but the ametriptylene and DF118(dihydrocodeine) were very hard to get off.

I took the ametrip for around 7-8 years...it's actually hard to remember now, but at the peak, I was taking 25mg 4 times a day which is very close to the limit I think, and the Dr cut me down to 25mg 3 times daily after about a year. Can't remember the exact timing, but that seems about right.

After about 5 years of the 3x daily, I started to cut out the daytime stuff and just took the whole lot at night...yeah it made me sleep that's for sure, but I was still like a walking zombie in the day.

I did try stopping altogether without slowly cutting it out and I went through hell...the worst kind of withdrawal, it was so bad, I lasted about 2 days then went straight back on to it, back to square one.

It took over 18 months, possibly even 2 years to be finally free of the stuff. I put this down to the fact that I had been taking it for so many years.

Like I've said before, it was only after I stopped taking the ametrip. and it was finally clear of my system that I FINALLY began to feel a real difference in the pain levels...it was like a kind of feedom from some weird prison...and I got my life back...no more dopey and sleepy days much to my friends and family's relief!

Good luck everyone with the meds..they do have their place, definitely, but my advice is, when you are a bit further down the line with this injury, try and do without 'em if you can.

Lizzy B