Starting Neurontin Withdrawal

I am to start my withdrawal from 2700mg of neurontin this week. I take three 300mg at morning, noon, and dinner. I had tried to go off it myself a few time, but guess I tried to do it too quickly, the pain was terrible. I have been on it for about five years for chronic pain and it doesn't work. I will go down one pill (300) every three weeks or so. I hope this will be slow enough to prevent withdrawal symptoms.
Any thought on this would be appreciated.

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Hi, Wanda! How are things going?

One warning I'd like to give you is that you do need to do this very slowly and carefully. Since Neurontin is actually an anticonvulsant, a rapid, sudden withdrawal actually creates the risk of suffering seizures. You've already experienced the rebound pain that can happen from doing it too fast, so I don't have to warn you about that, but I am sorry it happened to you!

Learn more Neurontin details here.

Is your doctor helping you taper?

Something that is often used now to try to help people taper off a medication is to get them down to a very low dosage and once they can't go any lower, doctors will often have them start extending the span of time they wait to take it. For instance if you take it every 8 hours, they then have you try to switch it to every 10 hours for awhile, then 12 hours…. another alternative being used is to start having them skip days, For instance take the lowest dose for 6 days of the week, skip the 7th, then take it for only 5 days, then for only 4 and so on.

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I already am wishing the time away! I want off this so badly, I guess what happened was a small does never helped so the dr. kept increasing it hoping it would. Now I am with a dr. who is really interested in finding the answer for my pain. I am going away for a couple of weeks and when I come back will go down another 300mg, this time one of my morning pills. The dr. said to lower them before the night ones, so I could sleep.

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Thanks for all this info. I just started 300 mg 3 times a day a week ago for neuropathy and I feel so out of it I want off. I'd rather deal with pain then walk around like a Zombie. I thought because it was not a narcotic it was safe. I was wrong.

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Wanda, your story sounds so similar to mine. I've been withdrawing from 2700 mg. gabapentin since mid-Feb. It never helped my pain at all, but I thought to be the good little patient and go up and up at doctor's urging, just to say I tried. Ugh! Since I wasn't at the super high amounts for too long, I started out reducing at a pretty quick rate (by 300mg every week) until I got to 1500mg. Then I went down by 150mg per week until I reached 750mg. Now it's tougher going, for sure! I just went down 50mg to 700 yesterday and I know I will be spending longer at each level because I have to stay functional and keep working. My side effects include ear problems (sounds are so uncomfortable--they jangle my brain! And I'm a music teacher!), eye problems (light is too bright, and it's like a bright ceiling over me at all times--hard to describe, also, continuing blurry vision), nausea, weakness in my limbs, continuing gastro issues, more hair falling out than it was at the higher dosages (!?), impatience and anger, last night a nightmare and weird electrical current running through my body when I woke up from it. The list could go on, but I'll spare you. I thought I might be off this by July, but it may be longer. I can't even get any pain medication from my doctor. Do they have a course in med school on how to treat your patients like they're i****s? I could rant much, much more but I'll spare you that, too. lol Best wishes to everyone for whatever you are going through!!

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