Does Anyone Taking Lyrica Have Memory Loss? (Page 9)
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I have been on Lyrica for about 8 months now and I am having fantastic results. My dr is trying to increase my dosage and I have been doing it in 50 mg increments. I am up 100 more now in a month, for a total dosage of 400mg. I find that I have very bad recall and loss of my vocabulary during conversation. It eventually goes away, but I was wondering if anyone else has this? If it keeps up, I just may have to drop back down 50mg until I get used to it? That seemed to work that last time I had to raise it.BTW, I have nerve pain in my ribcage. (not caused by shingles)

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Yes! I was only on 100 mg and I had horrible short term memory loss. I would forget where I was going while driving, forget what I was talking about mid sentence, repeat myself or ask questions repeatedly and do things like put my purse in the freezer and lose my car keys... In the car the instant I took them out f the ignition. Here, I put them in the glove compartment and have no recollection of doing it. I'm only 40. I was taking it due to femoral nerve damage from a knee surgery. I have been off of it for about four months but still forget why I walked into a room etc... Only for a few seconds but often enough to be embarrassing and bothersome. I would rather deal with the pain. Horrible drug.

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Mary r Z,
I'm so sorry that happened to you, and especially losing your job to top it off. What a tragedy.
I'm down to (1) 75mg pill/day and working toward zero. Meantime, I'm bummed about the weight gain, maybe 45#'s overweight by now. Even though I am very disciplined about my diet, as my dietician has said, I just can't budge the scale downward. The only suggestion she had to make was to switch from 2% milk to nonfat. I already eat only zero fat Greek yogurt. Meantime, I've developed another troublesome health issue (ibs) which is now known to be caused by food intolerances to various complex carbohydrates of varying chain lengths found in 6-7 different food groups. I'm now on the FODMAP elimination diet and it's sufficiently complicated to require some guidance from a nutritionist (who specializes in FODMAP intolerances). I have appt next week, and a breath test (for hydrogen) coming up that requires an even more restricted diet followed by 12 hr fasting. It's just more complications, discomfort, pain, appointments- and I can't help but wonder if this too is related to lyrica. I seem to blame everything on lyrica at this point! (My weight gain, memory problems, and incontinence have been diagnosed by specialists to be lyrica side effects, not just my imagination.)
I read that there is a "very high comorbidity rate with ibs and fibromyalgia." Lyrica is often prescribed for people with fibromyalgia. I also suspect that fibro is really just a more expansive condition of neuropathy, for which I was prescribed lyrica. A connection? Who knows?
I wish you better health and hope you can enjoy an early retirement since losing your job.

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Nick, you are so off base. You KNOW Republicans don't support healthcare, regulation of out of control insurance Giants, or even Wall Street, for that matter.....etc.. WHO is corrupt? The ones that support the donor class, that's who the R's support, the very rich! Who turn right around and donate to them to keep them in office. Republicans trashed this country over 30 YEARS, and you think the D's ought to be able to fix it in one presidency? That's just nuts. Pls don't bother me w/ a reply. This is the last I have to say about WHO is corrupt.

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I have been taking lyrica for 2yrs now started with 75 mil had cogentive problems shot term memeroy twitching in my left hand now I'm down to 25 mil big time issues

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Kitty that is just silly ,The Democrats are corrupt and have had 8 years to fix the system and have not , also the Democrats will finish America off if they dont already achieve this by the time Obama leaves office so you will be biting your nose off to spite your face...

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I was placed on Lyrica sometime in 2006. I don't remember the dosage. At the time I worked in a hospital and Lyrica was given to me for back pain. Prior to that I was on davocet which managed my pain fairly well with little side effects. Then the US government had darvocet and darvon taken off the market. The doctor put me on Lyrica because a salesman said it helps pain, hurrah the new aspirin kills the pain along with the brain. I had terrible side effects, I acted like a drunk. The hospital tested me during my working hours with a blood alcohol test, which of course was negative. I stopped Lyrica cold turkey and another pain doctor put me on Tylenol #3 which helped. Some of my memories have come back and I am not falling off a chair but I still have trouble with finding the right words to say and still have problems with short term memory and it has been 10 YEARS!!! Anyway the hospital laid me off in 2007 after failing monthly evaluations and I had worked for them 29 years. I credit Lyrica for causing me to lose my job.

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Register as a Democrat, make sure you vote for Democrats, because they are the ones who will work to regulate our out of control Pharmaceutical industry. The Republican position is NO REGULATION of anything, not health providers, not of pharmaceuticals, not of much of the insurance industry. Only having Democrats in the White House & the Congress will we continue to expand Obamacare.

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When carisoprodol got banned in 2007 (practically worldwide bar India - cheap but far poorer than UK NHS Carisoma - & Argentina - Finadiet Listaflex is the best brand on the planet bar NONE but costs a fortune & Pharmacy Act 2010 banned export of ALL medicines - and perhaps two, maybe three other countries, they gave me LYRICA brand pregabalin, raising dosage from 200-600mg/day over 8 weeks. I am unable to use any of the SMRs left on the market because of either drug interaction with something I take long-term; prob either OxyContin or clonazepam, or because of the very high likelihood of my suffering the 'rarer' & 'more serious' side effects as detailed in the PILs for tizanidine and methocarbamol. I did notice that Lyrica's PIL stated it was for NEUROPATHIC and not chronic MUSCULAR pain, but the effects during the four months or maybe five that I was prescribed pregabalin were horrendous. I wondered where all the bruising on my shins came from; why I woke up each day not knowing whether it was Monday or Wednesday or Friday or whatever; missing appointments; and being a non-drinker, why the f*** would my old mother accuse me of being permanently pissed as a newt? On top oc which, my lumbar pain was, if anything, WORSE. I of course reported it to my GP & complained (for which obviouzly thdy took no responsibility despite the Pfizer information never oncs mentioning that my condition was treatable using this absolutely dreadful drug.

It was seven years before I found I had been blatantly lied to; Carisoma 350mg WAS permitted to be prescribed, but only to chronic lumbar pain patients for whom no other available med was suitable, for which I obviously qualified. However over that 7 yrs they have apparently weaned every patient off carisoprodol and now it is completely forbidden and not available anywhere at all in Europe. I have to either spend a fortune for Listaflex or take dodgy pills from India. So yes, I agree that side effects from pregabalin are amongst the worst I have experienced and that amnesia after using it is a whole lot worse than the one used by dentists as first choice sedation for its amnesiac value, IV midazolam 15mg. (Which I take in tablet form for my insomniac bouts, so it does not have auite that full effect on me... anybody who can suggest anything to take before my dental appointments to enhance the midazolam - tried bromazepam and lorazepam with little success - please post here! DEFINITELY the drug with the worst unwanted amnesia preventing normal living that I have ever been prescribed - & WRONGLY at that!

May I add that before that cow Thatcher, the UK had an NHS which was perhaps the finest healthcare available anywhere. This current Cameron Govt (& I never ever thought such a thing were possible) is EVEN WORSE - Roche, Pfizer, GSK, Schering-Plough, even Sanofi Aventis have all withdrawn top class brands (in my case the last straw was the deletion of RIVOTRIL leaving only Auden McKenzie's AWFUL clonazepam - I was always Rx'd Rivotril by BRAND - as pharmacies have been ordered to disprnse the cheapest generics, & many xrugs have simply been removed from the Formulary.) I fear for real OxyContin & OxyNorm now the patents have expired and Actavis have gained Market Autborisation for RELTEBON & LYNLOR respectively which are considerably cheaper and less effective. XANAX is the only alprazolam on the UK market - no generics at all - but only in 0.25 & 0.5mg, so I am spending the majority of my Disability Benefit on efficacious brands from other EU countries. PALFIUM (dextromoramide), King of opioid analgesics, is now, after being deleted in Ireland, only sold in Netherlands and the 10mg strength withdrawn. so I must attempt to fill 5mg tabs in bulk on several EU Private Prescriptions before its rumoured cessation of production all together.

So the NHS has gone from the most admired healthcare anywhere to what I consider an utter joke over the past 20-25 years and is getting worse all the time. The complete refusal of the USA to even consider permitting international web-based pharmacies denies me several meds which I could really be doing with and they also ignore International Laes as they ever have done. And where else does the Pharma Industry regulate ITSELF and not suffer for blatantly bizarre and exceedingly expensive price-fixing even of some of the cheapest drugs available? And deny real Oxycontin to its citizens? A letter to the White House is in the pipeline. Nowhere else would permit a LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY (DEA) to interfere with a doctor's professional judgement on good prescribing, particularly concerning analgesia. OK some of this is off-topic because Lyrica was prescribed in place of something else QUITE WRONGLY; but needs to be said (& discussed). Anyone who agrees willing to start a relevant thread?

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No wonder u can't think properly God am on 150 mg and if I take 2 I feel like am in a diffante world I don't stop talk in about shhhiiiittteeeeer so I would say ur on a silly amount and what do u expect

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Sorry to hear that! We are enthusiastic fans of our Johns Hopkins here in Baltimore, though we all know medicine is an art, not a science.

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Jennifer,
Yes, I decided to stay on Cymbalta too, since I had been suffering devastating, almost incapacitating depression before I went on it, even tho it was a fairly low dose, only 20 mgs. But it makes a lot of difference for me emotionally and is supposed to work synergistically with lyrica.

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LAW,
I go to Stanford University hospital and Clinics. Doctors are not so "up on this stuff" as one would hope!

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I recommend you do not increase your dosage. Take the smallest dose you can take to make life livable. There are serious side effects, and some are lasting, long after you stop taking it, if ever the day comes when you can.

Some side effects don't present until you've been taking it a year or 2 or 3.

Read everything you can on MedsChat that relates to lyrica and side effects. When you see many people report the same outcome, pay attention to that.

For myself, I have had amazing pain relief fron neuropathy associated with multiple spine injuries and later development of degenerative disk disease leading ultimately to the more serious condition, spinal stenosis, in 2 regions, cervical (auto accident) and lumbar (sports injury).
By now, I've had triple level laminectomy (L-3, L-4, L-5) which was successful, but I've developed numerous side effects from lyrica ( diagnosed by specialists, not by me or by PC) including incontinence, rapid weight gain (40#s in 1 yr- no, I did not eat more, nor have increased appetite) and exactly the kind of memory problem you described. I'm currently at half the highest dosage I ever had of lyrica, the incontinence has improved dramatically, not the memory problems. Reading on here, many say the memory problems persist long after, maybe permanently, after you d/c lyrica. So be careful.

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Stopping Lyrica or Cymbalta or any drugs in that class requires a gradual withdrawal or else you can become very ill. By the way, Cymbalta can have memory loss as a side effect as well.
As I have suggested before, it is always best to go to a teaching/ university hospital, where doctors are extremely current on this stuff.

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hi karel
yes i myself am on 150mg x2 daily for chronic back pain and although it does work, i forget things and sometimes get lost during basic conversation!! i do not want to stop as it helps my pain but now my family have started to notice which is embarassing but need the pain relief, do u get me?
tommy

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I was on lyrica for 3 yes. I had those symptoms an also had swelling of my feet legs an ankles and a lot of weight gain. It made me gain 60 PDS in 9months. So I had to stop taking it because for one it wasn't working an the side effects was to much. I didn't no it was a narcotic, so when I stopped taking all at once it was horrible. Was sick in bed for almost 3 weeks. It actually took 3 months to get back to normal an not b sick an tired all the time. Dr didn't tell me anything about the side affects or that I would have withdrawal symptoms for months. After that I look up every new medication any Dr gives me.

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Lyrica is quite simply a lock on your mental file cabinet. You will never regain your proper memory while taking Lyrica. The hesitancy, the stumbling for words, names, etc. will always be with you as long as you take this drug, and you take a lot of Mgs. The decision to be made is whether you can accept this in place of your pain/ discomfort, or is there another drug which will not have this effect and do the job? Most likely not, but you should inquire.
Good luck!

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Hi, I have experienced the memory loss, when I was in lyrica, very strong side effects.

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Thanks , it is nice that everyone is so willing to help. I have actually gotten a lot better, I can't say that I am the old me yet. I am well enough to go back to school . I have noticed with me , once I stopped the meds , which I wouldn't recommend anyone doing it how I did but I am now having the beginning issues that I had before the " Fibromyalgia " took my life over . I am changing my insurance , so this month I have no insurance which is fine. But I have found that you basically pay for the health care that you get through insurance which for me means I will have a doctor that cares and comprehends that we (the human ) are not the same and text books can be wrong. I still think that it is related to thyroid issues as doctors are so full of the " book says" and forgot that the symptoms are. I hope to make it through the next 4 months and then I will have my 3 surgeries this summer. I am still taking my Cymbalta , I have found that I become very worried, scared and depressed when not on it.

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Jennifer -
Well Italy- you are not alone. You did the right thing. It's to bad you can't see the same Doctor. Make sure you document what is going on when it happens. I am in South Dakota and MS is prevelant in the Midwest so I am being tested for that first. I have to mention this- they are going to do an scan of my brain and check for MS. I personally believe- like everyone here- it's the lyrica. Are you tired all the time or take really hard naps for 3 or more hours? There is a lot things that are affected but you are on the right track. Visit with your husband and make sure you tell him everything. I can keep you informed as I go through this right before you. I literally just told my family on Christmas- now instead of pointing out my short comings- everyone is more than willing to help out- especially when you lose track of what your saying in the middle of a sentence.
Anyway- I'm happy to help you in any way I can!

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