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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Gabapentin makes me feel normal

falsifiedhypothesi

falsifiedhypothesi

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Feb 22, 2014
Messages
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Location
Detroit MI
Gaba makes me feel sober, like I was before I started taking drugs. It removes the mental fog that is ruining my quality of life. If I take 1.5 grams it over a 2 hour span i am slightly intoxicated, it makes me feel slightly manic and off balance.

I can get shit done, I have so much motivation I hardly know what to do with it. Ive worked on my truck, finally, after putting it off for over 2 months. I cleaned myself up, worked out, got all my laundry done, and reestablished some of my social life. this was all done in a few hours, which is unheard of for me.

This drug really brings back my love for all the things I used to cherish. Does anyone else share this empathetic and motivated experience when taking this substance?!
 
I totally get you, though I personally wouldn't describe it as a sort of baseline state, gabapentin puts me in a certain "zone". Conversation flows effortlessly, creativity and music enhanced, and I get this revitalizing energy that makes me feel like a million bucks. There's no drug that puts me in this state, I love it. The problem is this goes away fast with regular use, otherwise I would consider daily low dosing.

There are also many complaints about long term daily use causing serious mental clouding as well as memory issues which is a bit off putting. Weight gain and fluid retention is another common problem. Aside from that infrequent gabapentin use is great for social situations or when you need to get things done, IME at least. I've gone to several parties on just gabapentin for a more social experience.
 
I can believe the mental clouding claim. while I'm on it I do feel sharper in social situations but overall it seems to dumb me down. I also took my regular daily dose of ~6 grams of kratom so that might have enhanced it. It gives me this strange manic energy, like I've been doing lines of methylphenidate except without the anxiety.
 
falsifiedhypothesi said:
Gaba makes me feel sober, like I was before I started taking drugs. It removes the mental fog that is ruining my quality of life. If I take 1.5 grams it over a 2 hour span i am slightly intoxicated, it makes me feel slightly manic and off balance.

I can get shit done, I have so much motivation I hardly know what to do with it. Ive worked on my truck, finally, after putting it off for over 2 months. I cleaned myself up, worked out, got all my laundry done, and reestablished some of my social life. this was all done in a few hours, which is unheard of for me.

This drug really brings back my love for all the things I used to cherish. Does anyone else share this empathetic and motivated experience when taking this substance?!
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I do, but with lyrica which is supposed to be very similar to gabapentin.
The problem is, I don't like to go above a certain dose, so I have no choice but to take other things on the days I don't take lyrica.
As well as physical addiction, if I just kept on with my lyrica but daily, it would stop working and there wouldn't be any point taking it.
 
Same here, it just makes me feel normal from all the Psych medication I am on.......Granted tolerance goes up and I need a little more than the doc prescribes but yes I told my doc the same thing. It just makes me feel normal.
 
I agree 100%.if been preaching baba for a couple years now.memory isn't as sharp as it should be and I have become dependant/addicted
 
I remember thinking in these exact terms ("I feel normal") when I stumbled across gabapentin years ago. But I experienced a pseudo-psychedelic effect (color enhancement, CEVs, enhanced touch sensations) in addition to the "love" and motivation that I considered to be far from a sober feeling. I guess you could call these wanted side effects relative to the normalizing, antidepressant properties.

I have since been prescribed the drug, and the effects have evolved/devolved over a few years, and I am no doubt dependent. I haven't tested the waters much, but am almost certain that a dependency to gabapentin carries with it a serious withdrawal profile upon cessation. I have read about it in online forums, and have also felt its threshold in between doses at times.
 
It's such a strange drug, it's like it just flipped a switch in my brain that made me realize what's really important. How fast does tolerance build? Let's say I took a gram a day for the work week then rested on sat and sun, would that dose still work come Monday? If I could use this bi-daily or even just one or two times a week it would improve my life by an infinite factor.
 
if it's anything like lyrica your tolerance wont be gone after a two day break as that is not enough time to reverse the tolerance.
 
I feel the same way about gaba, not only does it make me feel sane and free from anxiety even more so than benzos, but it also helps my IC pain so much that I feel like there's nothing wrong with me. You need to stop taking it for like a week to get that trippy feeling again though lol.
 
i'm on it myself because of arthritis pain and feet problems. I was on hydrocodone, but it got to a point where it was ruining my life. I got the greatest high and I felt like I could love everyone, but the problems associated with it almost ruined me and my family. Is there anyway to get a high or a buzz with mixing any medicine with gabapentin? I miss the groovy feeling and it sometimes makes life a bit better.
 
Yes, it is like MDMA, but only to the extent that you can describe the effects in words. Folks often say that gabapentin tolerance increases very quickly, and I believe that it does for most people. But for me, the effects diminished very slowly.

I have been taking gabapentin for about 7 years. Does anyone have a equally extensive experience with the drug?

I would like to make it useful again. I will by no means quit the drug suddenly. I had a recent episode with phenibut, which is a similar drug in my opinion, and I went completely psychotic for about a week after ceasing it cold turkey. The decision to quit it so abruptly was not my own and was completely out of my control. I had the most bizarre "dreams" in a virtual sleep state. And I had audial and visual hallucinations that, for the most, I could not distinguish from reality. The GABA functions of the brain are nothing to mess around with.

Anyway, after a very slow taper, how long should I abstain from gabapentin to reduce my tolerance.? Is it possible to reverse my tolerance and get some of its original therapeutic effects again? Anyone have any idea?
 
I wish I had more info on this drug. I think I will research it's action on the brain before I take it again. gaba is a queer substance, I wouldn't be comfortable with it again until I know how it works.
 
It's MOA is not only pretty unique, but poorly understood. Gabapentin isn't your typical GABA analogue, from what is known it's main activity is believed to be a result of a2 voltage gated calcium channel binding as well as modulation of both GABA and glutamate. It has no known activity at either GABAa or GABAb. Here's an abstract I had bookmarked if your interested, it's probably a bit outdated though.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9686247
 
There are some good articles around the web. Contrary to popular belief, gabapentin does increase GABA activity, but does so through indirect means. I ran across this information on the web months ago. I just did a quick scan and could not find it again, but do a google search for "gabapentin journal" and you'll get a range of results.

CaptainKratom, that's the one I think.

"In vitro, gabapentin modulates the action of the GABA synthetic enzyme, glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) and the glutamate synthesizing enzyme, branched-chain amino acid transaminase. Results with human and rat brain NMR spectroscopy indicate that gabapentin increases GABA synthesis. Gabapentin increases non-synaptic GABA responses from neuronal tissues in vitro."
 
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Thanks for the reference CK. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with any of this and only have a laymans understanding of neurochemistry, this just raised many more questions. My only knowledge includes the basics, dopamine, serotonin, etc. transporters and I only have a vague understanding of those as well. Ive been wanting to get into chemistry and possibly neurochemistry, I'm trying to find some college classes that cover these subjects.

Right now I feel some weird rebound effects, which include, stiff muscles, stiff jaw (was not clenching while high), and general mental dullness. These could also be minor withdrawal/rebound effects from kratom as I have a small tolerance for kratom and haven't taken any in almost 24 hours.
 
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