Gabapentin (Neurontin) or Pregabalin (Lyrica) for Benzo withdrawal?

[pally pete]

Im currently trying to give up benzos (again) after a seriously heavy 6 weeks binge of daily useage of amounts that are literally suicidal.

I have a massive Tolerance(one of the drug councillors told me i should be dead and my tolerance was by far the biggest he had ever came across in 20 years!

yet i only used to binge at weekends therefore giving my body 1 week to recover.Even with previous sporadic use i could sometime suffer physical withdrawal symptoms for 3-4 weeks or more.

My GP and my Drug councillor seem to keep passing the book to each other, which is not helping and (imo) could be dangerous as the longer i abstane from any benzo use the higher my risk of serious withdrawal symptoms.

I've slowly been tapering my dose since last week, on Tuesday i took 400mg of Diazepam, on wednesday i didnt take anything, on Thursday i took 200mg Diazepam on friday i didnt take anything and today ive taken 240mg Diazepam of which gave me the taste for more benzos so i stupidly arranged to get my hands on 100mg Alprazolam (which would of all been consumed in the next 12-24 hours) Thats how ridiculous my tolerance is! Anyway i decided against getting the Alprazolam.

Anyway i know im in for some withdrawal symptoms ranging from moderate - life threatening.

Ive been recommended Gabapentin to help with my withdrawals. Will this help or be of any use? or Would Pregabalin be a better choice or neither?

It seems unlikely that either my local drug councilling service or GP have any idea whatsoever about Benzo tapering

Ive also been on been on Sertraline 100mg per day prescription.

As always any help appreciated,thanks.

(sorry about the essay)

 

[bben]

Im currently trying to give up benzos (again) after a seriously heavy 6 weeks binge of daily useage of amounts that are literally suicidal.

I have a massive Tolerance(one of the drug councillors told me i should be dead and my tolerance was by far the biggest he had ever came across in 20 years!

yet i only used to binge at weekends therefore giving my body 1 week to recover.Even with previous sporadic use i could sometime suffer physical withdrawal symptoms for 3-4 weeks or more.

My GP and my Drug councillor seem to keep passing the book to each other, which is not helping and (imo) could be dangerous as the longer i abstane from any benzo use the higher my risk of serious withdrawal symptoms.

I've slowly been tapering my dose since last week, on Tuesday i took 400mg of Diazepam, on wednesday i didnt take anything, on Thursday i took 200mg Diazepam on friday i didnt take anything and today ive taken 240mg Diazepam of which gave me the taste for more benzos so i stupidly arranged to get my hands on 100mg Alprazolam (which would of all been consumed in the next 12-24 hours) Thats how ridiculous my tolerance is! Anyway i decided against getting the Alprazolam.

Anyway i know im in for some withdrawal symptoms ranging from moderate - life threatening.

Ive been recommended Gabapentin to help with my withdrawals. Will this help or be of any use? or Would Pregabalin be a better choice or neither?

It seems unlikely that either my local drug councilling service or GP have any idea whatsoever about Benzo tapering

Ive also been on been on Sertraline 100mg per day prescription.

As always any help appreciated,thanks.

(sorry about the essay)

Go for the lyrica its much stronger. I would try to take like 2grams of lyrica 2x daily and then taper down from there. Unfortunately for you lyrica is very very expensive so i hope you got insurance. It comes in 150mg pills so you would have to use your supply up quickly. Maybe start at 1g 2x daily if u can and go down.

At that level of benzo use not much is going to help, but lyrica is ur best bet. Neurotonin will be too weak for you, but its better than nothing. Shit you might even try alcohol if u cant get anything else so you dont seize, it does effect the same site as benzos.


lastly, go to a hospital and tell them the amounts you are on and that you no longer have any at all. they will be required by law to taper you since benzo wd from that much can be fatal. Thats what i would do, they have to give u benzos which will probably be librium. Since its life threatening they will treat u without insurance.

 

[RobotRipping]

damn that's an insane amount of valium to take. I stole this from another forum but it's very interesting and useful:

http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijpharm/vol4n2/gaba.xml

While a slow tapering of benzodiazepines may take several months until complete detoxification, our case confirms a previous report (22) suggesting that gabapentin treatment can be a more rapid alternative, even in patients with a history of multidrug dependence including cocaine and opiate abuse. Besides transient insomnia, all typical withdrawal symptoms were prevented by gabapentin in our case.

i'd still recommend a very long taper to get down from such high doses or at least being under some form of supervision during your withdrawal.

 

[pally pete]

Go for the lyrica its much stronger. I would try to take like 2grams of lyrica 2x daily and then taper down from there. Unfortunately for you lyrica is very very expensive so i hope you got insurance. It comes in 150mg pills so you would have to use your supply up quickly. Maybe start at 1g 2x daily if u can and go down.

At that level of benzo use not much is going to help, but lyrica is ur best bet. Neurotonin will be too weak for you, but its better than nothing. Shit you might even try alcohol if u cant get anything else so you dont seize, it does effect the same site as benzos.


lastly, go to a hospital and tell them the amounts you are on and that you no longer have any at all. they will be required by law to taper you since benzo wd from that much can be fatal. Thats what i would do, they have to give u benzos which will probably be librium. Since its life threatening they will treat u without insurance.

Thanks a lot mate, i failed to mention im from the U.K so luckily i have the NHS which as you probably know is one of the greatest institutions created in this country in the past 60 years, (Albeit far from perfect) regardless of the money you have in your pocket you will get equal treatment (well not if our current Conservative government have there way! )

Anyway politics aside...my concern is neither my drug councillor or G.P want complete responsibility over what treatment im going to require, the info i get is dont just suddenly stop using (which i already knew) they mention an 'in-patient detox' which i do not really have much idea of??

Thanks anyway for your advice

Btw check out www.benzo.org.uk

damn that's an insane amount of valium to take. I stole this from another forum but it's very interesting and useful:

http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijpharm/vol4n2/gaba.xml
Thanks mate but check out www.benzo.org.uk

There is an insane amount of information on benzos (but not on people who abuse as heavy as i have/do)


i'd still recommend a very long taper to get down from such high doses or at least being under some form of supervision during your withdrawal.

 

[Whipped Dream]

Go for the lyrica its much stronger. I would try to take like 2grams of lyrica 2x daily and then taper down from there.

2grams of Lyrica is an insane amount to knock back if you've never tried it previously. Benzos and Pregabalin don't work the same way in the brain. I've heard Lyrica is great for benzo withdrawal, but I'd recommend starting at a lower dose since it is very expensive and the recommended max daily dosage is 600mg.

 

[Psychedelic Jay]

Go for the lyrica its much stronger. I would try to take like 2grams of lyrica 2x daily and then taper down from there. Unfortunately for you lyrica is very very expensive so i hope you got insurance. It comes in 150mg pills so you would have to use your supply up quickly. Maybe start at 1g 2x daily if u can and go down.

This is horrid advice.

Taking high amounts of lyrica like this will fuck up your kidneys. Your kidneys will not be able to process all of it properly without shutting down eventually.

 

[effie]

^ Do you have a source for pregabalin causing kidney failure? I know that in patients with pre-existing kidney disease there can be problems with excretion of the pregabalin, but I have not heard of it causing kidney damage.

2g of pregabalin does sound like far too much though - it's usually advised that you start low and work up, and 600mg is the highest dose recommended by manufacturers. In my opinion it would be sensible to try gabapentin first, then pregabalin if gabapentin doesn't work - if you are in the UK you probably won't have much choice over this as doctors are more familiar with gabapentin and it is cheaper for the NHS so it tends to be first-line. No doctor would prescribe you 2g of pregabalin.

I'm sorry your GP and drugs counsellor can't work out who needs to be making the decisions about your treatment. Can you ask if you can arrange an appointment with them both, or ask for them to speak to each other to work out how they are going to proceed? I'd imagine that as your tolerance is so high, both are apprehensive about the best way to manage your situation, but they can both bring different things to the table (medical knowledge vs drugs knowledge) so really they should be working together!

Good luck..

 

[Psychedelic Jay]

^ Do you have a source for pregabalin causing kidney failure? I know that in patients with pre-existing kidney disease there can be problems with excretion of the pregabalin, but I have not heard of it causing kidney damage.

The Lyrica information sheets bro... I take this medication. No one gets prescribed more than 2x 300 mg a day. Most doctors won't go over 2x 150 mg or 3x 75 mg.

It says that 8 grams is the median known to likely cause acute kidney failure. I'm sure that loading up on this long enough at a half of that dose per day is going to build up somehow. Even abusers don't dose this frequently.

 

[effie]

Chill, I wasn't accusing you of being wrong, was just interested as it's not something I'd come across before

I'd had a read of this and it did list renal failure as a known side effect, but a rare one which means it occurred in somewhere between 1/1000 and 1/10,000 cases (quite a range) and the only paper I could find on overdose was this one, which was just a case study (n=2) and didn't mention renal failure.

You're certainly right about the doses doctors will prescribe, and that it would be a really bad idea to start on 2g/day.

(ps I'm a sis not a bro.. )

 

[Psychedelic Jay]

Chill, I wasn't accusing you of being wrong, was just interested as it's not something I'd come across before

I'd had a read of this and it did list renal failure as a known side effect, but a rare one which means it occurred in somewhere between 1/1000 and 1/10,000 cases (quite a range) and the only paper I could find on overdose was this one, which was just a case study (n=2) and didn't mention renal failure.

You're certainly right about the doses doctors will prescribe, and that it would be a really bad idea to start on 2g/day.

(ps I'm a sis not a bro.. )

LOL Chill what? I love talking and typing. Sorry if it was over the top.

I'm sorry about the gender mishap, Bro was meant as in "general". My bad.

Back to the topic. Think about it. 8 grams is a lot of Lyrica. I got mad making it to a gram or so with all the pills I have to take. (150 mg ones).

It would be hard to build up the mindset to pop that many of them. I hate that I can't get to the upper limit of the prescribing guide for lyrica.

I would love to have me some red devils handy.

 

[effie]

Haha it's fine, I don't mind being a bro

We're definitely both agreed that a lot of pregabalin isn't a wise plan. I was just interested to read about how it caused renal failure. Doesn't matter in the context of this thread however, as the OP is looking to be prescribed something, so will get max 600mg/day as you said

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

i'd be freaking out if i was supposed to be tapering off a significant benzo dependence with anything but a benzo. why would someone try to do that? if it's because the patient does not believe s/he has enough self control to taper using valium, what happens once they realize they are out of benzo and will not have anything but fucking lyrica to survive the day unless they get on their cellphone or to a walk-in and do something about it?

 

[Whipped Dream]

Hey Psychedelic Jay - So you take a gram of Lyrica currently? Is that a result of an eventual tolerance build or what? I'm on Lyrica too but only 200mg - 300mg about every other day. I've been on it for about 3 months now and I'm surprised to see almost no tolerance build so far.

 

[pally pete]

^ Do you have a source for pregabalin causing kidney failure? I know that in patients with pre-existing kidney disease there can be problems with excretion of the pregabalin, but I have not heard of it causing kidney damage.

2g of pregabalin does sound like far too much though - it's usually advised that you start low and work up, and 600mg is the highest dose recommended by manufacturers. In my opinion it would be sensible to try gabapentin first, then pregabalin if gabapentin doesn't work - if you are in the UK you probably won't have much choice over this as doctors are more familiar with gabapentin and it is cheaper for the NHS so it tends to be first-line. No doctor would prescribe you 2g of pregabalin.

I'm sorry your GP and drugs counsellor can't work out who needs to be making the decisions about your treatment. Can you ask if you can arrange an appointment with them both, or ask for them to speak to each other to work out how they are going to proceed? I'd imagine that as your tolerance is so high, both are apprehensive about the best way to manage your situation, but they can both bring different things to the table (medical knowledge vs drugs knowledge) so really they should be working together!

Good luck..

Thanks a lot for your imput,much appreciated.

The thing is my G.P and Drugs councillor have been talking to each other! My G.P just says i need to sort my benzo use out but she does give no advice as she admits she isnt a specialist in that field and my drug councillor (infact the whole drug councilling service i visit) has never really had to deal with anybody like me before, they are more specialised in Heroin and Crack addiction etc rather than Benzos.

It's almost amusing at times as i seem to have more drugs knowledge than any of them and seem to educating them about benzos etc. My councillor has never heard of Heather Ashton or anything like that.

Like i think i said they just keep passing the book, well anyway i have my next appointment with my councillor in less than 1 hour so gotta go!

Thanks again everybody.

 

[Psychedelic Jay]

Hey Psychedelic Jay - So you take a gram of Lyrica currently? Is that a result of an eventual tolerance build or what? I'm on Lyrica too but only 200mg - 300mg about every other day. I've been on it for about 3 months now and I'm surprised to see almost no tolerance build so far.

I'm only on 300 mg a day. It has no tolerance issues for me. I have been on it since it became available in my area. The only difference in doses is just the strength of the effects. Some people just need more than others.

 

[Violenza666]

The Lyrica information sheets bro... I take this medication. No one gets prescribed more than 2x 300 mg a day. Most doctors won't go over 2x 150 mg or 3x 75 mg.

It says that 8 grams is the median known to likely cause acute kidney failure. I'm sure that loading up on this long enough at a half of that dose per day is going to build up somehow. Even abusers don't dose this frequently.

Yea, it's in there. I have been rxed both Lyrica and Gabapentin. Both of them can eff up your kidneys.

 

[Psychedelic Jay]

It is quite a disturbing sick painful feeling to have your kidneys glog up. OMG!

 

[Supeudol]

Benzo withdrawal is fucking brutal. I've been using both extremely high doses of benzo's and opiates for 8+ years. I had to goto the hospital here because I lost my sense of touch, and my brain felt like it was disconnected from my body. They kept me in there for 13 days and did a Valium taper starting at 60mg/day dropping down by 5mg per day, and a Morphine taper at the same time dropping down from 90mg by
10mg per day. Its been two days since I've been released from the hospital, and the meds i'm currently on are Metoprolol 50mg BID, Clonidine 0.1mg BID, Lyrica 150mg BID, Effexor XR 150mg in the morning, and 100mg Trazodone at night. When I went to Hospital the night of August 31st my pupils weren't even responding to light. Holy fuck never been in so much distress in my life. I'm still suffering currently. My stomach feels like its burning off and on, headaches, shakiness, tactile sensations (goosebumps) all over my body. Fuck this sucks. I've been on and off Lyrica for like 6 years or something if I remember correctly. When I see my family doc, I think I am going to get him to up to 600mg/day because thats the dose I was on a few years back, and seemed to help with benzo w/d a lot more.

Any other suggestions? I have no energy, also a lot of diahhrea and shit. Man this blows. Benzo withdrawal is no fucking joke. Way worse than Opioid withdrawal, I don't care what anyone says. And going through both at the same time is complete and utter hell. I really want to get off the Effexor, cause I think its making things worse.. been on it for a year I think or something. But been on and off different SSRI's previous for about 6-7 years.

They did bloodwork on me there, and in the ER, my legs and muscles were twitching so much I thought I was going to seize up for sure, but I've never had a seizure in my life. I don't have any Veins that are visible on my arms hardly dso it took about 3-4 nurses to take blood and get an IV in me while in severe distress. And all I got was 1mg of Ativan Sublingual after that, didn't even touch me at all. So about 7 hours later they gave me another 3mg Ativan Sublingual, still didn't touch me, an hour later, another 3mg of Ativan Sublingual, and then about two hours later when I finally got moved up into the Psychiatry Unit, another 3mg of Ativan Sublingual, still no relief.
My Benzo tolerance is through the fucking roof. 8(

 

[Mugz]

How did your appointment go Pete?

Just wanted to add something to the other replies here. I suggested to my doctor a few years ago on my first taper attempt to use Gabapentin to aid with my benzo taper and he was totally against the idea.

 

[Supeudol]

- Just wanted to bump this thread up a bit. Any other suggestions for benzo withdrawal? Especially the tactile sensations and sleep? I guess not much one can do, but really ride it out.