A warning about Lyrica

[mikeritchie30]

I was prescribed lyrica twice and both times I took it the day after I experienced a flu like syndrome followed by cellulitis in my lower left leg. Can lyrica predispose you to cellulitis? My warning is I believe Lyrica, even though related to gabapentin, is much more dangerous and can cause cellulitis which is a serious disease! The flu like syndrome may have been side effects of cellulitis brought about by lyrica lowering my immune system allowing bacteria to cause cellulitis.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Perhaps lyrica lowered your immune response. Not sure - but I haven't heard of this before. I just suggest you don't take it anymore if this is the case and talk to your doc about this. You could also be allergic to lyrica. Have you tried gabapentin?

What are you prescribed it for?

 

[mikeritchie30]

I'm prescribed it for pain and numbness in the hands and fingers, possibly tendonitis or carpal tunnel. However with antibiotics the rash seems to go away, otherwise it doesn't so therefore I think its cellulitis. I take gabapentin usually, but I tried lyrica twice and had negative results both times. Bummer.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Ah- I think you may just have an allergy to the medication as you don't respond the same way to gabapentin.

What dose of gabapentin do you take, and what did you try with lyrica?

Have you tried other medication? Carabemezepine, amytrityline or tramadol for instance?

 

[mikeritchie30]

To be honest with you I take both at recreational doses but both still last awhile and do seem to help the pain. I hope its an allergy because staph isn't something to mess around with!

 

[Jabberwocky]

Right well there you go.

You shouldn't abuse lyrica in high doses. It is more potent than gabapentin and when taken at very high doses for a long period of time can be as difficult as benzos to come off, even harder e.g. You're at risk of having a seizure. If you have a genuine pain condition that's another reason you shouldn't be abusing these drugs.

Lyrica at a low dose probably wouldn't cause the same problems. How much are you taking?

 

[mikeritchie30]

I've never had a problem or a single withdrawal syndrome from gabapentin but for some reason lyrica seems to be more debilitating than influenza!

 

[Jabberwocky]

What doses do you take? Be honest.

Yes lyrica acts in a stronger way than gabapentin. It's more addictive and more powerful. I was at doses of 600mg daily for 4 months, and it took me 6 months to withdraw completely. It was a fcking nightmare. Worse than benzo withdrawal.

 

[mikeritchie30]

about 400 mg to 500 mg a day. I was prescribed 60 tablets and I'd take about eight to ten of them a day, sometimes more.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Yup that's probably what happened then, you go into withdrawal from the stuff or you're allergic.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

If you never got any withdrawal symptoms from stopping gabapentin and you only took Lyrica once when this happened, I doubt it's withdrawal symptoms (plus withdrawals would not explain the rash). It sounds like you may be allergic to or having some other reaction from the Lyrica. On websites that collect patient reports of possible drug side effects, there are a significant number of reports of people on Lyrica thinking they had cellulitis, and almost all of them were when people first started taking Lyrica.

Accounts from people include things like:

I just started Lyrica. Yesterday I got a rash on one leg it looked like cellulitis. I also had a low grade fever. I have read somewhere, that some people do get fevers from Lyrica. I went to the doctor and the doctor said it was not cellulitis, and that the the redness and the swelling were caused by the Lyrica.