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Misuse of gabapentin apparently on the rise

I just picked up a three month supply of gabapentin yesterday. The doctor raised me from 3 x 300 mg to 3 x 600. The goal in doing this was discontinuing 10 mg hydrocodone for chronic pain. After reading all this, I'm reluctant to use it now.
 
Its a bit overstated IMO. I've used pregabalin and gabapentin for years and never had much WD from it thank fuck(I know some people really suffer in that regard unfortunately..). I just try not to take it continuously. Its just all the off label uses causing the current shitshow. It pisses me off because there's two medications that work for neuropathy. I guess it doesn't matter if its scheduled as I'm locked in but still. I don't need it to become super well known these meds are abuseable. Its bad enough I need these medications for the rest of my life but I've dealt with enough scrutiny for being an abuser I'd rather not hear about or have it cause complications for things I need. Personally I'd rather use medical MJ but being on an addictive narcotic is a better choice....!;) Sure I abuse my pregabalin sometimes but I make adjustments to do so. Take a bit extra on Friday or Saturday and I take less during the coming days. Obviously that doesn't make it right but it is a nice chemical at higher doses. Really its nice either way. At the end of the day it's be way nicer to eat an edible and take a couple tokes during the day but once again our bassackwards society is still a bit behind on that one...
 
Well, Kentucky just became the first state to schedule gabapentin. Which is ridiculous. The article I read even states that the problem with gabapentin abuse is that it is used to potentiate other substances. Which makes the other substance still the root problem. All scheduling gabapentin does is make a few people think that the war on drugs is actually accomplishing something.
 
Gabbapentin can and will get you high, and i have heard it's name being thrown around more. However it shouldn't be restricted and scheduled id say. Dxm can get you high as hell and is otc but it isn't a sought after drug like morphine, and neither is gabbapentin I don't see it creating much more of a buzz then it currently has.
 
In Massachusetts people on piss tests call gabapentin "Johnny's" (retarded slang) lots of people in NA do them (rationalizing it's not a drug somehow.) It's somewhat popular here.
 
OH. MY. GOODNESS....
Kaiser chemical dependency docs where I’m from hand this shit out like candy. Everyone is on it. Pick a symptom, name any compliant: “I say let’s go up on the Gabbapentin”.. abuse it? Ugh! I don’t even take what is prescribed to me... FOR ADDICTION!!!
 
Gabapentin (Neurontin) + Pregabalin (Lyrica) are excellent medications for certain types of pain. It's a shame that they are attracting attention due to an abuse liability. Some patients need these meds to function, as they are the only pain-killers that work long-term for them.
 
Yeah let's just eliminate or highly restrict every good option pain patients have. So it's got some abuse potential? Welcome to schedule 2 Gaba, it's coming soon i'm sure!

Unless someone does something soon the best regular pain patients are gonna have is ibuprofen.
 
Oh yeah, gabapentin is definately an abused substance. But my point of view on every drug... So what. That being said I know several people who consume way over the prescibed dosage of gabapentin. I have never felt any significant effects during high doses of the drug however, I guess some people do.

If it can be abused, it will be abused. Also, abuse is a relative term.
 
Yup, abusive is a pretty vapid, meaningless term that has died out among people who know what they're talking about. It's actually a fairly good acid test when it comes to whether someone is very familiar with drug use and related issues, whether they use the "abuse" terminology. So late 1980s 8) ;)

But I digress...
 
gabapentin has been pretty big in massachusetts for years now, under the street name "johnnies." They are probably also becoming more popular due to opioid use being on the rise. gabapentin can do wonders for opioid withdrawal.
 
That is where I first discovered it. Part I it I think is that there is greater awareness of how to treat opioid withdrawal syndrome, so more clonidine and gabapentin get in the black market there. It’s just a guess, but my experience in other places seems to verify.

It’s good because it means users are getting higher quality care in Boston than most places, but hopefully this kind of thing doesn’t result in it being more restricted. Such a crucial medication treating opioid use depenedency/disorder/withdrawal.
 
toothpastedog said:
Yup, abusive is a pretty vapid, meaningless term that has died out among people who know what they're talking about. It's actually a fairly good acid test when it comes to whether someone is very familiar with drug use and related issues, whether they use the "abuse" terminology. So late 1980s 8) ;)

But I digress...
Click to expand...

LOL, I'm about to get schooled...I use the term all the time and I'm standing by it until you convince me there is a reason not to. Please proceed....:D
 
This is basically the idea: https://www.substance.com/abuse/2160/

Maia S said:
?Abuse? is an ugly word. ?Child abuse,? ?sexual abuse,? ?physical abuse,? ?emotional abuse,? ?domestic abuse.? And then, of course, there?s ?substance abuse.?

But one of those things is not like the others: In all of the other types of abuse, there is a perpetrator who is harming a victim. In substance abuse, however, it makes no sense to argue that the victim is the poor innocent line of methamphetamine or glass of Chardonnay. The damage done?both by the problem and by the term?is focused primarily on substance users themselves. The label is far from innocuous, and I vote that we retire it.

Debates over language often seem absurd or trivial. However, they make a difference in how issues are framed and therefore what solutions are proposed. Frame addiction as ?substance abuse? and it is easy to see why it should be a crime, but call it ?substance use disorder? and it sounds like something to be treated medically. If we want to make progress in ending stigma, we should think hard about the words we use.

In the case of ?substance abuse,? there is empirical evidence of the harm that this framing can do. In a 2010 study, researchers surveyed over 500 mental health practitioners at a conference?two thirds of whom had PhDs. Participants were asked to determine treatment for two hypothetical patients who were identical except that one was labeled as having a ?substance use disorder? and the other was said to be a ?substance abuser.?

Despite their training, the practicing clinicians favored a more punitive approach when the patient?who was described as having relapsed during court-ordered treatment?was labeled as being an abuser as opposed to having a disorder. More clinicians supported jail or community service rather than further treatment for the ?substance abuser.?

This is one reason why the recent revision of the DSM?psychiatry?s diagnostic manual?no longer includes ?substance abuse? as a diagnosis. The term brings up stigmatizing associations between abusive behavior and drug taking?even though the vast majority of people with drug problems do not engage in child abuse, sexual abuse or domestic violence. While the DSM revision made many mistakes?for example, it conflates the milder substance-problem diagnosis with the more severe one (mild problems do not require abstinence and the last thing we need is more reason to apply ?one size fits all? treatment in this area), the editors were right to get rid of the abuse label.

But there is another reason why labeling someone a ?substance abuser? or as having a ?substance use disorder? matters. That is, the ?substance abuser? label encompasses the whole person, defining him or her by dysfunction. In contrast, the ?substance use disorder? tag simply describes one problem, rather than an entire identity.

[...]
Click to expand...

International harm reduction groups have been pushing, rightly I think, to rethink how we talk about drug use and people who use drugs. Language has power; after all.
 
toothpastedog said:
This is basically the idea: https://www.substance.com/abuse/2160/
Click to expand...

Despite their training, the practicing clinicians favored a more punitive approach when the patient?who was described as having relapsed during court-ordered treatment?was labeled as being an abuser as opposed to having a disorder. More clinicians supported jail or community service rather than further treatment for the ?substance abuser.?
Click to expand...

The above study is convincing enough for me.

I take issue with her first point, though. I have always said I 'abused' drugs when I was a kid and I say I 'abuse' sugar today. I don't say it to shame myself but to name what it feels like. No, the sugar isn't the innocent victim of me, I am. Am I a perpetrator against myself (my better interests)? In a way, though perpetrator feels like the loaded word in this case. I guess I could retrain myself to say I have a sugar "use disorder" but on those nights where I continue to eat the whole box of chocolate covered raisins long past actually feeling sick from eating them, abuse seems an apt term for what I'm doing. Abuse of me by me. :\
 
I think the point is that perpetrator applies to people who engage in violence against other people. We don't say people perpetrated suicide against themselves, we say they committed suicide/took their own life/etc. Likewise most people don't tend to think about themselves as victims when they make choices that cause them harm. It seems more often people would say they're just reaping what they sow.

The main point is that abuse is related to doing violence. Most so-called "drug abuse" is people trying to help themselves - people don't use drugs (generally speaking) because they want to harm themselves, it's because they want to feel good (especially in their own skin; to feel whole; to experience a sense of contentment of what psychosocial integration might feel like). Calling their use (or mis-use) abuse totally ignores and misrepresents why they're using drugs, which them opens the door for us to think of and treat "drug abusers" with different standards than we would other people who need help.

It's not a perfect argument, but it is very significant in entirety. So much language has been coopted by our drug policy/prohibition, from addiction to abuse. Language matters because how we talk about drug use plays a huge role in what we think about it, and what we think about it is very important vis a vis the kind of drug policies we are willing to support or not.

I think you get the point :) thanks for bringing this up herby. Haven't had to really go over it with anyone recently, but it's still a very significant conversation for people who, as most are still stuck in pretty narrow minded ways of thinking about drug use. That's slowly changing, but it's really really slow for the so-called harder drugs like cocaine, methamp and heroin.

You spend enough time on BL to know way more about the situation than the ordinary person though <3
 
herbavore said:
I guess I could retrain myself to say I have a sugar "use disorder" but on those nights where I continue to eat the whole box of chocolate covered raisins long past actually feeling sick from eating them, abuse seems an apt term for what I'm doing. Abuse of me by me. :\
Click to expand...

I don't like the term "drug abuse" because it doesn't mean what it says - no one is actually worried about the poor inanimate drugs and how they are treated - and it allows drug users to be lumped in with wife "abusers" and child "abusers" without having earned it. However, I dislike just as much the currently in-vogue "substance use disorder". Just because someone does an excessive and unhealthy amount of recreational drugs doesn't mean they have a disorder. How about an "unhealthy drug-use habit"?
 
Some people just like being sedated for some reason. Why does 10% of America feel the need to be fucked up all the time? Tramadol was popular.. they cracked down on that. Now Gaba is popular... They will crack down on that. I wonder what is next?
 
My pharmacy fucked up my gabapentin prescription and gave me six months worth so I now have 540 300mg gabapentin capsules. Too bad 1. I think it's a shit high and 2. it has no street value. Why couldn't they have fucked up my Ativan prescription instead???
 
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