Hey all,
Just some background: About 4 months ago my doc and I started on 75mg of Lyrica twice a day to try and control my anxiety. It diddn't work. However I discovered that it was acting as an amazing anti-depressant, so we stuck with it, as we were just coming off Effexor, which I hated to death. Since then, we're tried Rivotril twice a day to control my anxiety (which does a much better job than Lyrica), and kept the Lyrica as an anti-depressant. However, its tolerance has been increasing pretty quickly, and it's expensive as heck. I simply cannot afford it anymore as I'm running through four 150mg boxes per month. Yet without Lyrica, I go into a major state of depression where I just want to shoot myself across the head.
Right now I'm taking 45mg Rivotril + 450mg Lyrica just to get to sleep. But the Lyrica's go ASAP. So last night I decided to purchase what I hope to be my last box of Lyrica and try to taper off it. I took 150mg Lyrica along with the 4.5mg Rivotril at night. I slept fine, as I was ridiculously tired from having slept very poorly the previous night. However, I woke up feeling majorly depressed, although the anxiolytic effects of Rivotril were still present.
I can't afford to book another appointment with my doctor to discuss the issue of tapering off Lyrica, so I decided to turn to bluelight's advice. I am planning on slowly switching to a different anti-depressant such as Remeron (for the third time), since it's much cheaper and is somewhat effective at putting me to sleep at the start of the treatment, and I've found it to be a pretty good anti depressant in the past.
Just for the record, I've tried all sorts of sleep aids such as Rohypnol (legal here, tolerance too high), Rivotril, Remeron, Seroquel (zombified all of next day), Ambien (can't drive the next the morning, crashed my car 3 times), Melatonin (placebo), among others I can't remember off the top of my head. So I've given up on treating my insomnia. I'm hoping to just stick with Rivotril for anxiety and Remeron for depression. If I can't sleep, that's just too bad. End of story.
Would any of you have any suggestions on a taper-off plan for lyrica, given my current dosage of 450mg at night + 150mg at noon? I realize it won't be a walk in the park, but hopefully I can start switching to Remeron as I taper off Lyrica.
Thanks!
Just some background: About 4 months ago my doc and I started on 75mg of Lyrica twice a day to try and control my anxiety. It diddn't work. However I discovered that it was acting as an amazing anti-depressant, so we stuck with it, as we were just coming off Effexor, which I hated to death. Since then, we're tried Rivotril twice a day to control my anxiety (which does a much better job than Lyrica), and kept the Lyrica as an anti-depressant. However, its tolerance has been increasing pretty quickly, and it's expensive as heck. I simply cannot afford it anymore as I'm running through four 150mg boxes per month. Yet without Lyrica, I go into a major state of depression where I just want to shoot myself across the head.
Right now I'm taking 45mg Rivotril + 450mg Lyrica just to get to sleep. But the Lyrica's go ASAP. So last night I decided to purchase what I hope to be my last box of Lyrica and try to taper off it. I took 150mg Lyrica along with the 4.5mg Rivotril at night. I slept fine, as I was ridiculously tired from having slept very poorly the previous night. However, I woke up feeling majorly depressed, although the anxiolytic effects of Rivotril were still present.
I can't afford to book another appointment with my doctor to discuss the issue of tapering off Lyrica, so I decided to turn to bluelight's advice. I am planning on slowly switching to a different anti-depressant such as Remeron (for the third time), since it's much cheaper and is somewhat effective at putting me to sleep at the start of the treatment, and I've found it to be a pretty good anti depressant in the past.
Just for the record, I've tried all sorts of sleep aids such as Rohypnol (legal here, tolerance too high), Rivotril, Remeron, Seroquel (zombified all of next day), Ambien (can't drive the next the morning, crashed my car 3 times), Melatonin (placebo), among others I can't remember off the top of my head. So I've given up on treating my insomnia. I'm hoping to just stick with Rivotril for anxiety and Remeron for depression. If I can't sleep, that's just too bad. End of story.
Would any of you have any suggestions on a taper-off plan for lyrica, given my current dosage of 450mg at night + 150mg at noon? I realize it won't be a walk in the park, but hopefully I can start switching to Remeron as I taper off Lyrica.
Thanks!
