Misc Switching from gabapentin to Lyrica

[soundsystem00]

I am taking 800mg Gabapentin 2x a day. I really like this medication. It does make me feel pretty good, and it also helps a lot with mood and anxiety issues. Because of the headaches and some other side effects, my doc is switching me to lyrica, 200mg twice daily. I am getting the Rx filled tomorrow at 5pm or later. I was wondering if I should still take my morning does of Gabapentin, or if I should wait and just take the lyrica.

I was hoping to maybe get a little bit of recreational value from my first dose, although not entirely necessary. I mostly just want the headaches to go away to where I do not have to take so much headache medication everyday, which has to be horrible for my liver.

I was thinking of skipping my morning dose of gaba and taking 400mg lyrica after I get the Rx filled. Is there a cross-tolerance between the two?

Just hoping for some input, I'll be fine either way. Thanks!

 

[ThePharmacist4925]

From what I understand having read many posts about both gabapentin and lyrica, if you take them together there will be some synergistic effect that may improve the recreational value of your first dose of Lyrica. This being said if you take the two together at first then when you take Lyrica by itself it may provide less of a benefit as it pertains to the symptoms you are trying to treat. I'm not trying to ruin your fun I promise, I'm just letting you know. Pregabalin shouldn't have any cross tolerance with Gabapentin, they work with different systems for the most part. Well if I were in your shoes I'd be wanting to have a little fun to. Take Care

 

[deemeein]

I don't know too much about Gabapentin, but 400mg for your first dose of Lyrica is more than enough to see the recreational side to it... I am on 300mg twice daily and now I more-or-less take it as prescribed, but when I first got it I took 450-900mg at times and really noticed why my doc had said they sell it in prison now lol problem was with taking so many was that the script ran out way too fast and so I was left with none for half the month or more, which once you get a liking for it, sucks ass. Anyway, hope the change over goes well for you and you are happy with the Lyrica - I know some people advocate Gabapentin moreso than Lyrica, but I can't really comment on that. Good luck and hope you enjoy / see the benefits you want.

 

[Keif' Richards]

Very glad to see this topic come up, I'm going through a Gabapenting/Pregabalin change. The only difference for me, is that I'm currently doing my methadone detox and have both on hand. I was taking heroic doses of gabapentin for a couple of days before I went to pick up a prescription pregabalin. The withdrawal was so bad and being well aware of gabapentin's wonderful antagonism of opioid withdrawal symptoms, I was taking at least 8-10g (dangerous, ridiculous, do not imitate) per day. It was the only thing that made me normal enough (in combination with taking hits of good indica) to eat and drink. My body felt less and less of the akathisia and more normal, but gabapentin's therapeutic effects are very short-lived when abused in such doses; luckily the pregablin was on the way. A more potent, predictable (less bioavailalability fluctuation) was coming.

I am pretty experienced with both gabapentin and pregabalin on both a recrational and withdrawal relief basis. When I began to take the pregabalin I did experience the same relief as I did when using the gabapentin, but the more enjoyable effects like increased energy and "euphoria" were absent. I felt like the use of the gabapentin prior to the use of the pregabalin blunted my experience with the pregabalin. Tolerance built rather quickly and being as sick and crazy-thinking as I am, I ended up taking pregabalin in gram sized doses (dangerous, ridiculous, again, do not imitate) to relieve my RLS and general akathisia in order to get some amount of sleep besides the times of passing out for short periods of time during my yen. I haven't slept in four days, so sorry if I'm rambling.

I guess my point is to not abuse either of these medications too much or they have the potential to seriously lose their efficacy. We've discussed cross-tolerance between these kinds of drugs, but I thought it might help to open a little conversation about how the switch went for you.

 

[deemeein]

That is crazy, taking lyrica by the gram lol... I have taken about a gram and it knocked me out for the whole day, now that I get the 300mg caps it would be easy to take a huge dose but don't really want to ruin its benefits. I take 600mg once a day sometimes, instead of 2x daily and think that's high, nevermind grams of it

4 days man? I was the same for years esp with 6abp days, get some sleep will do wonders

 

[soundsystem00]

Awesome input guys. Thank you very much. I took my morning dose of 800mg now I just took my lunch dose of 400mg. I'm done dosing on gaba and I'm picking up my lyrica this afternoon for another dose.

Will I feel any discomfort from this switch?

 

[AsylumDweller]

My doc just put me on gabapentin for neuropathy. I'm well aware that Lyrica is the best thing for this type of pain, but it really gives
me some heavy side effects. The Rx says 1-2 300mg. caps four times a day.

In someone's experience what is the max dose I can take to get a little buzz going along with it. thanks for sharing your experiences!

 

[EarthBounded]

Gabapentin combined with lyrica in the same day will give you a drunk feeling, you can even fall over it gets pretty bad.

 

[Rybee]

What side effects do you guys get from Pregabalin?

 

[deemeein]

Biggest side effect from too much lyrica is talking really slowly and almost squeezing words out it can be so messed up lol, being unable to walk in a straight line and feeling strange when you try to, and sleepiness if too tired when taking it... but each to their own, I quite enjoy those side effects, but have noticed a bit of weight gain I don't like... when I was on 150mg twice daily I think the side effects were minimal compared to current dose.

 

[soundsystem00]

update : took 400mg. It is pretty nice but nothing too crazy. A little bit of difficulty walking and kind of goofy and funny. same as gabapentin. really it just feels like a more euphoric and clean version of gabapentin. when i say euphoric, its not much of a difference but feels a little better. its a little expensive for what it is, but i could definite consider this being my go-to daily help for my anxiety and mood problems.

gabapentin is changing my life. i am on the go all the time and constantly socializing. my art is taking off and i am talking to beautiful women left and right that i normally would be terrified of.

gabapentin and lyrica are really a gift from god. for me. especially since i am an addict in recovery, these meds do not release an allergy of craving. i can control them perfectly unlike benzos, which have torn my life apart for the past decade..


its great. okay I'm rambling haha thanks bye.

 

[deemeein]

400mg is a decent but not too big amount to start with, I bet you'll try a bit more in no time though, but then again I don't know you and we may handle it differently glad you liked it and didn't have a bad response to the changeover, all the best with it, hope you find a good ground like I seem to have with it. PS I am lucky to live somewhere where healthcare is totally free - no charge for doc or prescription, something I am really thankful for

 

[soundsystem00]

400mg is a decent but not too big amount to start with, I bet you'll try a bit more in no time though, but then again I don't know you and we may handle it differently glad you liked it and didn't have a bad response to the changeover, all the best with it, hope you find a good ground like I seem to have with it. PS I am lucky to live somewhere where healthcare is totally free - no charge for doc or prescription, something I am really thankful for

to be honest, i think it would feel better next time to only take 200mg. Sometimes less is more with this stuff. when i take too much it just feels a bit uncomfortable, like there is a huge load on my body. I get sinus pressure, headaches, and just a strange pressure feeling everywhere on my body. its with gabapentin too.

everytime i take my dose, i have to also take it with an otc headache pill. and I am glad you get free healthcare. I pay 70 a month for our country healthcare and still pay 100 us dollars for my script.

 

[deemeein]

that's a crazy amount to have to pay from my point of view, but if it helps you it's worth it I guess. I get all my prescriptions for free whatever they're for (so does everyone in the country) which compared to the rest of the world seems like quite a good state benefit.

The sinus headaches etc problems will pass with the lyrica. when I first started it if I missed a dose my nose would block and it would blow green mucus like I never came across before - no joke. But now it is so much better and I have no related problems at all bar the aforementioned walking / talking if I decide to indulge a little

 

[soundsystem00]

update : i took 200mg when i woke up, and 200mg at lunch. i felt great all day, but around 10pm, i felt really bad all of a sudden. it hit me almost instantly. just kind of a come-down feeling and craving for more.

part of me thinks that it is my body coming off the gabapentin. Today was the first day I haven't taken any in months. Usually the discomfort comes very quickly when i miss a dose of gabapentin, but i think that i felt uncomfortable form the gabapentin when the lyrica was wearing off.

Instead of popping another lyrica, I just took half of a gabapentin (400mg) and I'm feeling a little better.

I'm curious if I should take some gabapentin tomorrow or not. Or if this is even what I am experiencing. I definitely do not want to exceed the recommend dose of lyrica and become another one of those guys who pop massive amount of it. I want to use it long-term and do not want to run out before my next refill.

 

[nod0210]

if you're working with gabapentin (neurontin) and going to lyrica now, is this bc you've got benzo struggles? i advise pretty much everyone i deal with that has addiction issues to use gabapentin over any benzos, but i get a lot of complaints that even 400mg qid doesn't compare to 1mg klonopin bid. i get the feeling i'm dealing with med seekers a lot - well, no - i AM dealing with med seekers a lot, and i've had pretty good success using gaba over benzos with people actually working on recovery, but i'll be damned if one out of 4 doesn't call at least monthly asking to go back to pretty much anything that ends in "zepam" and then just goes and finds someone who will write a script for benzos not knowing there's already gaba in the system. i was having this discussion with one person two days ago who was brought in by concerned parents to find that in addition to gabapentin, latuda, effexor, and trazodone that were all coming from me they had gone and gotten scripts for klonopin and adderall elsewhere and i was like motherfucker since when did you develop adhd? last week?

 

[chase_in_56ace]

if you're working with gabapentin (neurontin) and going to lyrica now, is this bc you've got benzo struggles? i advise pretty much everyone i deal with that has addiction issues to use gabapentin over any benzos, but i get a lot of complaints that even 400mg qid doesn't compare to 1mg klonopin bid. i get the feeling i'm dealing with med seekers a lot - well, no - i AM dealing with med seekers a lot, and i've had pretty good success using gaba over benzos with people actually working on recovery, but i'll be damned if one out of 4 doesn't call at least monthly asking to go back to pretty much anything that ends in "zepam" and then just goes and finds someone who will write a script for benzos not knowing there's already gaba in the system. i was having this discussion with one person two days ago who was brought in by concerned parents to find that in addition to gabapentin, latuda, effexor, and trazodone that were all coming from me they had gone and gotten scripts for klonopin and adderall elsewhere and i was like motherfucker since when did you develop adhd? last week?

Are you a drug counselor?

You'd be surprised at the amount of halfway houses and rehabs that don't allow gabapentin at all because of its high rate of abuse among addicts. Kids from Boston came down here calling them "johnnies" and lyrica "larries" and they're extremely easy to buy on the street down here now.

Standard dosing is 4g of gabapentin crushed down and parachuted while slamming a red bull.

 

[soundsystem00]

so today i took the 200mg in the morning, and 200mg at 5pm after work. i didn't feel much at all.. the 200mg capsules seem pretty weak compared to the 800mg gabapentin. maybe i have a cross tolerance or something but they really seem to be weak. i am definitely going to try to get a higher mg or discontinue. i want to do extra ones, but at the same time i know that it would be wrong and i would pay for it.

 

[pinpoint]

Are you a drug counselor?

You'd be surprised at the amount of halfway houses and rehabs that don't allow gabapentin at all because of its high rate of abuse among addicts. Kids from Boston came down here calling them "johnnies" and lyrica "larries" and they're extremely easy to buy on the street down here now.

Standard dosing is 4g of gabapentin crushed down and parachuted while slamming a red bull.

Aw man I'm pretty sure it was my group of friends (we're from Boston) that started the 'johnnies' thing and resulting popularity. We had a friend John that LOVED gabapentin & would buy everyones script for them and so we called them Johnnies, then before we knew it the nickname spread through most of the neighborhoods in S. Boston and (apparently from your comment) way beyond. One of the few drug culture trends that I can personally take part credit for.

 

[soundsystem00]

dude.. I'm really feeling a lot of discomfort from this switch. I don't like it at all. Basically I am withdrawing from the gabapentin so hard that the lyrica is innefective. I have been tapering the gabapentin while continuing to take the lyrica. It is not comfortable at all and very unpredictable. I have to pretty much listen to my body, but the gabapentin takes so long to kick in, and has such low bioavailability that it is really hit or miss. This sucks.

For anyone who's doctor tells them that you can just safely switch, they are full of shit. Any experience or advice would be great.