United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Wanted to share this for anyone on neurontin:

The FDA recently approved a slow-release version of gabapentin,
http://www.drugs.com/gralise.html

For anyone who takes a lot of this per day, this drug might make it so you only need to take it once per day, and the amount of med in your system stays pretty constant, rather than a peak/trough level from dose to dose.

My doctor said it's not available just yet, but should be out soon.

Best,
MW

Wow, very interesting. I don't take it anymore, but I remember when I did it felt like I was taking a bazillion pills a day, lol. This would really make it so much easier to work into one's daily life. Keep us updated if you get to try it.

Hi Angela,

If you don't mind sharing, what do you take now, if anything?

Because yeah, I take a bunch of this stuff everyday, and it helps somewhat, but if there's other stuff people have found that works, I'm all for it.

Thanks!

I wish I could help more, but I don't take any meds now. My pain is usually pretty manageable. Right now my issue is simply getting enough sleep. I'm not kept awake by pain, but it's like my body just can't get comfortable enough to stay in REM sleep for more that 2-3 hours at a time, no matter how tired I am.
I really hope this new pill helps you out if you get to try it as it sucks having to swallow an entire pharmacy very couple of hours.

Ok, Heres my thought I use feather pillows to support my erbs to sleep , Over the years I use 2 small ones to take pressure off . I just needed the pillows on the injured sided to sleep, When I was little I used stuff animals to do this GO figure In my case pain tolerance grew over my life What I hate about meds is you need more because you build up a tolerance to me?? Pain needs to be dealt with It is a Quest to do Pain needs to go down you need it to TRY Will my thoughts help I have No Clue Because I drove semi with long hours and starting times it does not help my sleeping even in retirerment I like cat naps
Mr, Positive,FOREVER,
To

both gabapentin and the newer pregabalin have helped me. my take on the pain thing is to separate the nerve and the muscular. medicines are nice but i also know that i need to keep everything flowing so exercise/physical stimulation of some sort, is also very important. in my case, everything works together so i wrap exercise/massage/nutrition/medication/chiro~/accupuncture/love/care all up in my daily routine. important thing is, take care of yourself. good luck.

yep, djk, when i get lax on my excercise routine, my hand and arm let me know about it. AND HOW IT TELLS ME!!! it aint pretty. they can get right down ugly. so i just do me excercises regularly and i dont have to worry too much about the pain. i take lyrica right now and will be on it for at least another year. that helps keep away the pain too. along with the stellate ganglion blocks i had. those blocks were magical!! i could tell a big difference almost immediately. i am going to have some surgeries done in july and hopefully i will get some feeling and strength back in my arm and hand. and the pain hopefully will be reduced also.

Thank you for this post! I am going to talk to my doctor about it.
I hope you are doig very well!

My two cents worth is I switched from Gabapentin to Lyrica last year and I agree with Jmar about the exercising routine. I try to work out (arm and all) at least 4 mornings a week ...and I do pretty good at staying with that routine. I take a 150 mg Lyrica at 6am and I take another at 3 and that pretty much maintains me each day. My first year I was on way too many drugs. I made up my mind I was not taking a pharmacy daily - so I backed off myself. Dr. Li suggested me try Lyrica and it was the best decision I have made concerning pain management. Good luck!

Hi all,

This med is now available in 300mg and 600mg tabs. You take them in the evening and the coating slowly dissolves, which means that you get the gabapentin slower but at a more sustained rate. I'm on about day 7 of trying it out.

The issue I've seen with this is that I was on gabapentin 800 x3 or x4 per day, and I'm taking only 1200 of the slow release stuff. What happens is that I'll take it, but it "wears off" significantly before the next evening, so I still have to take one of the normal meds sometime during the day too. So while I was hoping that I could take the ER tabs once at night and be done with it, I still have to take the fast-acting stuff in the afternoon and then the ER stuff later. But it has reduced the number of times I need to take medication from 3-4 times to 2 times, and while it is working, it works fairly well.

The other issue with this stuff is that it is way more expensive than the generic gabapentin. With my current health insurance, it's still $100/month. For me that is a lot to pay for the same med as before, just at a lower frequency. I suppose the flipside is that since it is the same drug, you don't have to worry so much about new side effects.

Anyways, hope this helps anyone considering this new treatment.

Best,
MW