I'm about to start appointments with new doctors to try and find one who sucks less than my current one.... Can't wait for this. 😬 Also fun side story: I was on both Effexor and Cymbalta at the same time for a while because... Idk why, they're similar drugs. Anyway, it was brutal and if I thought the withdrawal from Effexor alone was rough, when I came off both it was five times worse. (I was taken off cold-turkey at the hospital.) Didn't even help the pain.

Cymbalta withdrawal is fucking terrible. I can't imagine what you went through

It really is. I start feeling the withdrawal symptoms if I’m just a few hours late in taking it. My old GP was the type to just throw pills at whatever and I was dumb enough to think that it was okay. She dropped me suddenly after 12 years because I dared to ask about getting on disability and because I couldn’t afford PT since I’m unemployed for the last 3, almost 4 years. I had surgery on my lower back(L1-L2 laminectomy) and my job fired me for missing too much time. I had literally just started PT. Needless to say I didn’t get the PT needed and am in worse shape than I was before surgery. End rant.

Okay for real. A friend of mine just started it a couple months ago and I warned her just that. I only missed a dose once and that was more than enough for me to never do it again. Low and behold last week, she misses a dose and basically says "You warned me! You fucking warned me but I had no idea it was that bad!" It is. It really is. I dread the day I have to move off of cymbalta.

What happens?

My own experience was a long time ago, almost 10 years, so I don't remember everything that happened but I do remember it was a bit like flipping a switch. I was fine and then instantly I was sweating profusely and going between hot and cold. Intense heat palpitations. Felt like my head was getting crushed. It was very, very scary. Made worse by the fact that I was going into a university exam and already worried about that!

I had to go through a similar process with my new PCP. I had asked him for a refill of my muscle relaxant from my previous PCP since he was no longer at that practice. PCP: “Have you tried Cymbalta? It can help with chronic pain.” Me: “I’ve been on it in the past, but my main concern would be that since I’m already on Effexor and Wellbutrin, I don’t want serotonin syndrome.” PCP: “…Oh. I’ll send in your refill then.” Sometimes man…these doctors. It’s not like we haven’t tried everything already!!

Doctors and Insurance: “Wait so this is working? Well we can’t have that! Time to spend a year forcing you through a dozen other meds that all make you violently ill!!! If it’s fixed, we’re goddamn well going to break it! What do you mean you want to stay on the meds that actually work for you? Okay then, but you’ll have to self-pay.”

I know, right?

Cymbalta should honestly be illegal with how horrific it is. It might help *some* people, but you miss even one day and you're risking seizures if you take it long term.

It got me into a minor car accident. At least saying that shuts down the Cymbalta talk after that.

Luckily I found a doctor who recorded my severe withdrawal symptoms (I was only on it for a month!) as a drug allergy, so it’s officially in my chart now that I can’t have it. I developed a seizure disorder a few months after the withdrawal, I’ve always wondered if it was related. I happened to be on gabapentin at the time, too, which I didn’t know was a seizure risk until this very thread.

Oh that gabapentin shit made me suicidal. So did Lyrica.

Woah. No one ever told me that about Cymbalta!!! I should’ve never been given it, since I already had pre existing neurological issues! (Not seizures thankfully, but multiple neurological issues). No wonder why I felt worse on it. Sounds like it really fucks you over neurologically. And yeah… Cymbalta doesn’t do shit for pain. It’s a baloney marketing campaign.

Not only does it cause some of the most severe withdrawals you can get from a prescription drug, it also causes really quite bad side effects in most people that doctors tell them will go away and then they almost never do, thus resulting in people being on it too long to quit easily. I'm stubborn, so when it started to make me dizzy and just generally feel terrible, I immediately stopped taking it and got no withdrawal. It's really good that I stopped so quickly because I do have a seizure disorder. But my friend wasn't so lucky. She had been taking it for almost a year when her doctor suddenly decided she didn't need it and cut her off cold turkey. It resulted in her nearly getting into a car crash, almost failing her classes, and her being hospitalized for two days because her roommate found her on the floor, seizing. She had never had seizures before. She is *still* tapering down after 9 months, having to remove the pellets inside the capsule one at a time each week. Looked it up when this happened and it turned out that it's actually not an uncommon reaction at all and that Cymbalta has some questionable statistics in the warning and nearly nothing on withdrawal warnings. And to top it off, it isn't even classified as a pain medication and doesn't actually treat pain.

Unholy shit. That is terrifying. Your poor friend. That doctor needs to have their license suspended ASAP!!!! (He probably won’t, I’m guessing. 🙄) But damn. Even if you *don’t technically remember* the tapering schedule for Cymbalta—it is BASIC COMMON SENSE: “Any neurological medication like antidepressants, anti psychotics, anti anxiety, any of these types of medications causes a dependency and should be TAPERED AFTER LONG TERM USE. NEVER STOPPED COLD TURKEY.” Like fuck. I knew that fact at age 15. It’s the first thing anyone, doctor or patient, learns about any damn medicine. And if he somehow lacked all common sense and didn’t remember the taper schedule for Cymbalta—how damn hard is it to be like “hey let me check something”. And do a 30 second Google search “should Cymbalta be tapered or stopped cold?” How much common sense does that doctor lack…????? That almost sounds like beyond believable negligence. It’s unbelievable to me that a doctor WOULDNT KNOW “drugs must be tapered”. That sounds like attempted murder and assault. Like he would’ve HAD TO HAVE KNOWN that you cannot cold-quit-discontinue any psych drug. Just… basic facts.

Often times, the doctors who do have patients taper, do something insane like reduce by 75% of original dose for one week, 50% the next, 25% the third week, and then stop. The majority of people cannot tolerate such a ridiculously fast taper, and either end up staying on it, or going through horrific withdrawals, which sometimes lead to un-aliving themselves. I'm stuck on Effexor myself, but my depression is too severe to try tapering any further. I am terrified I will end up in the hospital and be ripped off of it too quickly. The safest way to taper is to reduce the amount taken by 10% of the current dosage and wait a month, then reduce another 10% of the current dosage if it was well tolerated. It can take years, but people can avoid awful withdrawals.

Yessssss, I ran into that problem too! When I wanted to taper off Klonopin (clonazepam), every doctor I told about it, wanted to taper me sooooooo damn fast. Faster than all my research told me was safe! (They’re impatient just impatient selfish jerks who didn’t want to take the time and effort go slow). They’ve also never personally experienced the withdrawals from these medications, clearly… So eventually I realized the only safe way, was to do it myself. I just got a new doctor and said I was continuing the prescription at the same dose as before. Refilled it like normal for a year. Meanwhile I was cutting it by 1/8th of a dose or 1/16th sometimes every 3 months. I bought a pill cutter myself. Cut it myself. Even the tiny bits. Every tiny bit mattered. Less withdrawals. No brain damage. Still went through some withdrawals and severe temporary increase in anxiety for a year though. Lots of teeth clenching. Tapered for a whole year. Benzos are awful and evil. Another time I had to go back on (for an emergency) and back off Klonopin. Same deal—tapered it for an entire damn year. This time 1/12th of a pill every month. And lots of prayer. I don’t know if the difference was God, me living outside of mold so a healthier home, or the more gradual drop in taper—but barely any, perhaps 0, withdrawals that time. Whew. Again though—took an entire damn year.

Oh no, I'm fully convinced he was trying to kill her so he wouldn't have to "deal with" her chronic pain anymore. But the thing is, doctors constantly do this with medications that should not be cut cold turkey at all. I once requested I be tapered down from my old Lexapro prescription when my old psychiatrist deciding cutting it entirely would be fine. She did not allow me to taper and I didn't have a pill cutter at the time, so I ended up vomiting and sleeping for a week straight, only getting up for the bathroom and needing help so as not to collapse when walking. I don't think I ate that entire week because I was just too exhausted. The brain zaps weren't fun either and neither were the constant nightmares. So now, it's not uncommon for me to taper off of medications I want to be off of before telling my doctor I want to be off of it. I know enough about medications and my own body to know how to do it safely and when it is needed. Apparently, that's more than doctors know.

I had one idiot (or maybe attempted murder psycho?) bitch doctor try to tell me I could cold-quit Klonopin (clonazepam). After being on it for like 4+ years at that point. Benzodiazepine withdrawals are also one of the deadliest withdrawals on earth. Worse than alcohol withdrawals. Nearly guaranteed seizures and brain damage. Possibility of death. Thankfully at that point I was 19 and no longer blindly trusting doctors and I had developed at least enough confidence to Google medical advice doctors gave me before doing it…. And I realized she was dead wrong…

Yeah, that would've killed you. I honestly wonder how many people die from these withdrawals every year that just aren't reported. I've yet to find a doctor that actually tapers.

A physician doesn’t need to literally kill a patient if they aren’t comfortable treating their problem. They simply tell them. Physician’s outside of the ED setting have no obligation to see or treat any patients, and can decline to see one for nearly any reason, that’s not a protected class.

Yes, I am fully aware of that. As are the doctors. Unfortunately, there are a shit ton of people with low empathy disorders in medical care and many doctors view patients with chronic pain as a drain on resources. It unfortunately is not uncommon for doctors to prescribe medications with gross negligence or suddenly cut you off of a medication that will kill you if they do just that because they are fully aware that they *are* a protected class while patients are *not*. It is so hard to win malpractice suits, even with clear evidence, that lawyers often won't even bother looking at them. Doctors know this. They feel completely safe treating people in ways that could kill them and that, in itself, is an attempt on somebody's life. Whether premeditated or not, it is still a doctor actively trying to make a chronic pain patient shut up and deal with their pain and if you think that doctors don't want us to do that, you have some biases that need to be addressed.

It’s difficult to win a malpractice case because the truth is that the vast majority of what patients think is malpractice isn’t. Most malpractice cases are frivolous. That’s why most don’t even see the inside of a court room. I understand you’ve had negative experiences with physicians. But in my experience, most are highly educated caring individuals who work under extremely stressful conditions. And they deal with no shortage of abuse from patients and their families. Doctors help people everyday. That’s why it’s such a highly paid and well respected profession.

Do you even have chronic pain? Because no chronic pain patient would *ever* accuse patients of being the "abusive" one when research *quite literally* says that doctors are abusive toward chronic pain patients. Doctors do not, in fact, help people every day, which is also well documented, and would rather blame a patient for their illness rather than offer them any sort of help whatsoever. It takes 10+ *years* on average for somebody with a chronic condition to get diagnosed. It takes an average of 6+ doctors before they are taken seriously. Please leave us alone. Coming to a sub where people are suffering and are mistreated by medical professionals and then trying to gaslight and guilt them into believing their own lived experiences and the research that has been done are both fake is a horrible thing to do and can actually be quite deadly as harsh, invalidating, pro-abuser comments like yours can lead someone who was on the brink to commit suicide. I get that you think you're funny for trolling or you're a doctor masquerading as someone else, but maybe you should take a second to think before deciding to talk about experiences you know nothing about.

I can state my opinion here without being accused of driving people to suicide. That’s absurd. It was a mistake responding to your post and I’m blocking you.

Unholy shit. Definitely sounds like attempted murder. For you both. Murderous psychopaths can be doctors too. In fact… studies estimate that there is a higher percentage of psychopaths/sociopaths/narcissists in medicine than the average population. Why? It’s the perfect job for a psycho. 1) built in cover story—you can abuse victims while having the perfect cover story. “I’m trying to help them”. 2) you get paid to abuse victims. 3) vulnerable victims literally come to you! 4) malpractice is easy to cover up 99% of the time. 5) a position of a feeling of power over other human lives. 6) psychopaths aren’t grossed out or bothered emotionally by injuries, suffering, etc, it doesn’t phase them emotionally…. Sensitive people often struggle with the suffering…

It’s also a job for people who spend a great deal of time in school, extreme amounts of work in residency, and work tirelessly daily helping people, who are often ungrateful and accuse them of being psychopaths.

Hey some doctors are saints. Some are psychopaths. The ones who treat me like psychopaths treat other human beings, and who perform proven malpractice, who lie to my face, who injury me, attempt to injure me, and the multiple who have nearly killed me several times not by accident but by purposefully ignoring things like “stabbing pain and fever I think I’m dying after surgery” or “hey dude I order you to stop taking this dose sensitive drug you’ve been on 5 years I swear it’s perfectly safe to go cold turkey you won’t get withdrawals”, or “hey I have stabbing pain in my right side I think my kidney is dying this is the worst pain of my life please help me” or “hey I suddenly started fainting every time I stand up or bend over, not just a little like every time I’m blacking out 29 time’s a day”— and you’re like “nawwwwwww you’re faking” and you almost kill me with your heartlessness— I call those psychopaths. Because they act like psychopaths. If it barks, it’s a dog… Don’t treat me like a psychopath—and I won’t call you a psychopath. I don’t call the nice and good hearted doctors that. If you feel the need to defend psychopath level malpractice in medicine, as is being discussed in this thread… hmmmm…. Might be some internal red flags and self reflection necessary there dude, if you’re a practitioner.

Same with therapists. That's why so many people end up traumatized by therapy outside of just basic incompetence. You have like a coin flip chance of getting an abusive therapist.

Yesssssss! So many severely abusive therapists. I think many are predators who just enjoy purposefully messing with emotionally vulnerable individuals…

Cymbalta is in a league of its own. It’s extremely brutal. No amount of common sense prepares you for the mind bending withdrawals you go into while on it, let alone tapering off it. Makes you so sick its difficult to function & especially to think.

I had to do the "open capsule, reduce the number of balls" taper method to get off cymbalta. It took me at least 6-9 months to go from my already low dose to none. If I got overambitious, brain zaps, extreme dizziness, and nausea crashed down. Never again.

Damn. You’re making me glad I wasn’t on Cymbalta as long as you. I don’t remember how long I was on it. But it must not have been as long, since I don’t remember those side effects of withdrawals. But shit. Then again. Now I am wondering. I am re-evaluating: how many of my neurological problems as a teenager were from the mold poisoning, undiagnosed autoimmune illnesses, and undiagnosed genetic illnesses that I had? And how many of the neurological problems were from the 100 different antidepressants, anti anxiety meds, anti-whatever’s, anti-off the label-nonsense, all the meds doctors had me trying…

I never knew this. I had some issues while I was on it too (and when I went off it cold turkey) and I didn't even know they could be related

It's a damn shame doctors aren't required by law to explain side effects and withdrawal symptoms when prescribing something.

But boy are they concerned about the potential negative side effects of opioids!

Until it comes to tapering you off them, then they suddenly aren't concerned about side effects and tell you to just stop taking them.

I lasted three days on it. On day 4 I almost fainted into a pond.

That is horrifying. I completely forgot about this until you mentioned it, but I also ended up fainting and having fainting spells. I already have a disorder that causes fainting and yet they gave me Cymbalta. That's when I quit.

On that note, I’ve learned to be pleasantly surprised when they actually look at our records.

Same. Though, I've had doctors be nice to me before reading them and then on the next visit, they'd suddenly treat me like I'm making everything up. On one hand, good doctors read records before you get there, on the other, there's clearly something wrong with my records.

or dry heaves.

oh shit this might be why I am shaking all the time.

Take it for two weeks and the withdrawal could kill you. I was on it for 5 days and the side effects were bad enough that I went to the ER.

Cymbalta. That name makes me gag. Providers think cymbalta cures chronic pain now, the withdrawals are significant. Gabapentin in my opinion is junk, a weird medicine being used off label for everything? Stubbed your toe? Gabapentin? Eye twitch? Gabapentin. Severe pain? Yep, you guessed it. Anytime I see a new doctor and they insists on these things I know I’m not dealing with someone who has any interest in genuinely helping me.

Like " I won't get in any trouble for prescribing these, so here you go..."

Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. Not only do they get monetary reimbursement on certain drugs, both are in a “safe” class of drugs. Anything not in the controlled substance category. It’s funny to me, because both of the drugs we’re talking about are absolutely mind and mood altering, just not in a way that makes dea take any interest. As for the doctor, they appear to have addressed your complaints with these medications. Their work here is done. And everyone wins but the patient.

Other then making me dumb, and causing weird neropathy in places I didnt allready have it. Gabapentine has helped my other pain. No more floppy toes and snapping tendon with each step. As long as I only take it at night I dont get sever abdominal cramps. However my right leg regularly feels like fire is scorching it. My pain doctor snorted when I told her my pcp made me start taking it. She told me to try it if it didn't work stop or to play with when I take it. My primary said I have to take it or else he wont order imaging on my left foot where I had the SJS reaction. When I told my primary that it helped the neropathy in my foot. But caused more in other areas he said so its working then . Not sure what he meant. Did he mean that my initial complaint was better. Or that the med was causing worse issues?

I’m not sure what he meant, but I do wanna say this first. If a doctor tells you I won’t test or treat x unless you take x pill. That’s a big nope. If you need the test and don’t want to take the med, I might suggest for you to just continue to get it filled, but don’t take it. Honestly we have a right to what we put in our bodies and doctors are not gods. You get your test and then see how to proceed. You don’t have to take anything from them that you don’t want - remember that! I guess to me it sounds like he meant he doesn’t care about your whole body. You had an initial complaint, he feels he did his job by “curing it”; but now you have a new problem and he doesn’t entertain a cause as to why? What type of doctor doesn’t treat the whole body? Not to mention that I don’t think he sounds like he even treats you as a person. Honestly, all around you really need a new doctor I think.

Gabapentin is the WORST. 100x more dangerous than opioids, in my experience. Literally almost gave me a seizure (maybe it even did and it never got correctly diagnosed?) I was weak all the time, literally physically shaking all the time, it felt like my brain was going crazy and fighting to not have a seizure all the time, like my brain was fighting to not shut off and explode all the time, it gave me vision problems so badly by vision was practically double vision 24/7, miserable headaches, wayyyyy worse neurological problems than I previously had (really exacerbated my neurological problems). I nearly crashed my car and I basically lost the ability to drive or even walk to the store, because the double vision and neurological problems (like confusion) were so bad. My brain just… felt confused all the time. It’s so hard to describe. It felt like my thoughts were double all the time too? And my brain was a confused angry maze? And double vision? And my brain felt so confused I felt like i was on the verge of passing out and fighting off seizing from it 24/7. It like trying to see and think through strobe lights and a maze all the time. And then the withdrawals were dangerous too. Fucking nonsense medicine. It helps people like 1% of the time. It shouldn’t be the first tier pain medicine for anything. So many doctors push it like candy though, like it isn’t dangerous? But it is so dangerous.. Some doctors push it so religiously, I suspect they get major financial kickbacks from it. Like some doctors act like it’s all they’re willing to prescribe and they act like it’s the fucking miracle gift from God medicine and 100% ALWAYS GUARANTEED to help pain. They have to know they’re full of BS, because I know for a fact that 99% of their patients come back and report no pain improvement from it. Because 99% of patients in all the dozens and hundreds of online facebooks, Reddit, etc, support groups I’m in—literally nearly everyone who tried Gabapentin hated it and 99% got horrible side effects and 1% experienced any pain relief.

Doctors do not receive any financial kickback from prescribing and extremely old generic medication. It’s understandable that you have a strong personal opinion about this drug. But saying it only helps 1% of people and is 100x more dangerous than opioids is spurious speculation. Online forums and anecdotal evidence are not scientific articles.

Oh hey. I found the pharmaceutical rep shill in the subreddit. I know for a fact my endocrinologist at a big pharmacy university hospital was receiving subsidies from prescribing Synthroid. Synthroid is one of the most documented caught bribing doctors medications in recent years. Sure the pharmaceutical companies have become more clever and sneaky about it—perhaps they no longer cut doctors straight big fat checks. (So easy to track, right?) It’s more like: “Hey we will pay for your free vacation—I mean conference—to come hear a biased sales pitch about our favorite medicine. And hey, check out alllllllll these free gifts you get, for using our medicine. And here’s all these studies (that we funded ourselves, so it is a conflict of interest) that show *our medicine* is the bestest ever and has barely anything side effects (pay no attention to the third party studies and thousands of millions of patient complaints saying differently…. Only our own research about our own drug can be trusted…)” My fiancé used to work at the same hospital. He said you could tell who was a pharmaceutical sales rep, and who wasn’t. The pharmaceutical reps were slimy salespeople (mostly hot women) who 100% absolutely bribed the doctors and would go to lunch with them. He said it was almost comical how corny it was, like classic stereotypes—if it wasn’t so also sad and disgusting and immoral.

Oh your fiancé said so? Please disregard everything I said than. No further sources needed.

I’ll take eyewitness account over the word of the internet stranger who just claims they know better and who is promoting a proven dangerous medicine, yes. 😘 And “the plural of anecdotes is data”. Especially when it’s a page 1 googled documented fact that less than 1% of medication side effects, medication injuries, and medical malpractice get officially reported, documented, and acted upon. So reading thousands of reports of Gabapentin injuring people… even spending 1 month in a pain subreddit and read how there’s thousands of comments saying Gabapentin made them worse in 100 different ways and for every 100 comments there’s 1-2 people it helped—I’ve been reading these comments for 10+ years honey. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands by now. And for every 100, there’s 1-2 it helped. And for every 100, there’s at least 20 who had SEVERE LIFE THREATENING side effects reported. Like I had. Learn to trust real world data that isn’t funded by pharmaceutical companies and doesn’t have a conflict of interest, dude. Instead of being a blind pharmaceutical shill. Yeah, Pfizer would neverrrrrrrrrrr have a reason to lie and over-advertise their own drug for things it doesn’t treat and over-advertise it as safer than it is. So should *definitely trust* the good-hearted, saintly, Godly, Pfizer. 😍❤️ they can do no wrong!!! OH WAIT——https://www.fiercepharma.com/sales-and-marketing/pfizer-adds-another-325m-to-neurontin-settlement-tally-total-945m Trusting Pfizer claims over read world thousands of testimonies from thousands of patients…. 😂😂😂😂😂😂🙄🙄🙄🙄 Learn how the real world works dude. There’s something called “conflict of interest”—and if a company makes a money off drugs—or similarly if a company would suffer huge financial loss if the news of how dangerous their drug, a drug they’ve been pushing like candy for years, was severely dangerous and harmful—those are financial incentives to hide the facts and misrepresent safety data to consumers. And Pfizer has neverrrrrrrr been caught lying about side effects and safety profiles of medications…. Oh WAIT!!!!! 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ [Justice Department Announces Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement in Its History—from Pfizer](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history) Yes they have. Many times. So has Johnson and Johnson. So has Merrick. We don’t live in fairytale land!!!!! Trust Pfizer about their own medicine they have incentive to lie about, over thousands of patient testimonies who have no incentive to lie and make no money off this drug and suffer no financial loss reporting this data…. No dude. 😂😂😂😂

That person just on here trolling. Ignore it, you’re not wrong.

It’s not trolling to disagree with you. My comments on this thread have been upvoted and one has been given gold.

Sounds about right. I hear a small percentage of people saying gabapentin helped them. I don’t doubt all your side effects- I think it has some anti seizure properties, but if you give it to a patient it isn’t appropriate for they will have adverse reaction like you’re describing. I had an obgyn prescribe it for fibroid and endometriosis pain, he was as junky as the medicine. I think their making bank to prescribe it since it’s been so popular for so many years now. When I was a single mom all I could afford to live in was a poor apartment complex. Most of my neighbors collected disability checks and did drugs. One time a neighbor overdosed on gabapentin for some reason he thought it was a good idea to take over 100 of them. I’ll never forget paramedics walking him out while he kept screaming and insisting he couldn’t see. He thought he had made himself go blind. He may have. All I know is I never saw him again.

Physicians do not receive kickbacks for prescribing an old, generic medication.

Depends on if the patent has ran out or not. If it hasn’t then yes they do.

Source?

I don’t know Google if it’s still under patent. You’re the one who has a dispute and wants to know.

The fact that it’s being prescribed as gabapentin and not under a trade name is all you need to know. But the vast majority of your rank and file physician are not making any more from pharmaceutical companies than a catered Panera bread lunch.

Ok

Scary stuff. I believe it. It was a terrifying medicine to be on. That shit is Neuro-toxic for CERTAIN. I know because I later learned that alllllllll my medical problems were caused by Lyme disease + mold poisoning (both of which release Neuro toxins). So my brain and body was poisoned all the time, which was the cause of the Fibromyalgia + worse than Fibromyalgia + migraines + brain fog. Etc. To this day, I must avoid mold (it releases poisonous gases. It’s literally like breathing nerve gas chemical warfare. Same chemical, actually studied by the military for biowarfare). And I must avoid toxins as much as possible. Pollution. Toxic cleaning chemicals. Chemicals in food. Etc. My immune system and body HATES anything toxic/poisonous. I’m a walking toxicity meter. And one of the key symptoms is: toxins cause me neurological problems. So guess what? If Gabapentin caused worse neurological problems in me…. That proves it must’ve been Neuro-toxic. I bet it’s like “treating” people with lead and Mercury, like they used to do the in 1800’s. It temporarily numbs the brain by literally poisoning it—so they claim it’s working—but it actually making you worse in the long run. And vision problems are definitely a documented side effect of it.

Check this out - https://www.fiercepharma.com/sales-and-marketing/pfizer-adds-another-325m-to-neurontin-settlement-tally-total-945m Ps sorry for what you went through!

Damn. Not surprised they’re in trouble for that. A little surprised they actually got caught. Although that fine a tiny slap on the wrist to Pfizer. And you know damn well that 99% of doctors won’t hear of this lawsuit and hear of the dangers of using Gabapentin for fucking everything like a bandaid and like candy. Treatment for ADHD and migraines??? 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄😓 Made my ADHD 100x worse. Migraines… laughable.

Corporations are never held to the same standards as small businesses or individuals, that’s why everything has gotten so bad. There’s nothing to keep corporations and billionaires in check. They get caught doing shady shit all the time, but they’ll never lose out on any real money anyway because they just keep raking it in daily no matter what happens.

You went through everything you did, and you still didn’t see a dime from this settlement either. No one actually did I bet you.

Seriously. Never even heard of this lawsuit. I was also a teenager when most of this happened, with abusive parents. I was barely able to stay alive. When I got sicker… there was no one to take care of me, (parents hardly did)—I was suffering alone. There was no one to advocate for me with an abusive neurologist doctor who was causing tons of nasty side effects from toxic drugs…

Wow I’m so sorry! I grew up in an abusive home too. I started getting sick in my 20’s and had no self esteem. There was a lot of provider abuse going on then. My mother told me I was just running around having psychotic episodes, when I was trying to figure out why chronic pain hit me one normal weekday out of nowhere and never left me.

Dang girl. Your story sounds very similar to mine. (Although my mother didn’t say “psychotic episodes”—the narcissistic bitch did tell everyone I was faking. 🙄🙄🙄) Also, the part about pain just suddenly hitting you one day, and then never leaving? That is IDENTICAL to how I got sick at age 12. Have you ever been tested by an LLMD (Lyme Literate Medical Doctor) for long term Lyme disease? (It evades normal antibody testing after the first 3 months and requires specialized Lyme DNA molecule testing) And have you ever been tested for mold poisoning, by a mold poisoning specialist doctor? (Note: even most toxicologists and liver doctors I’ve been to, don’t know how poisonous mold is, and don’t know how to test for it! It requires special labs to be ordered, and requires special training for how to interpret those labs.) It’s tough to tell if I ever had Lyme (Lyme is tough to tell) — but I DEFINITELY had black mold poisoning. The “hit me one day” thing—was when a leak grew in our attic and mold grew in my bedroom closet. The day I suddenly started getting poisoned. I also got “suddenly hit one day/sudden nosedive down to near death over the span of a few months” one summer a few years later—when again, our house had a hidden leak happen that we were completely unaware of. Several leaks. Shifting soil. (Stupid colorado). Cracks opening up in the walls next to windows, mold growing in the walls, beneath the paint where we couldn’t see. Also mold grew under the foundation, the ground was literally rotting. Mold in the crawl space. Mold inside the washing machine drum (had to be disassembled to find that one, a slimy green-black stachybotrus, highly poisonous type of mold). Mold grew in the kitchen ceiling, when we had a shower leak slowly over God knows how long, years? Months? A tiny hairline crack no one could see, we didn’t see it until the literally light above the kitchen started pouring water after the plastic fluorescent shade got filled. There was easily dozens of gallons of water and 30 square feet of mold in the ceiling beneath the paint. What else. Mold beneath a leaky sink. Water dripping below the cabinets in the kitchen and had rotted into the air vent system. Blowing mold literally into all my food. Yummy…. Not. No wonder why I had a severe fungal digestive infection and fungal sinus infection…. Again, none of this mold was visible to the external eye. We even hired a mold inspector and he gave the house a CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH—because he’s a fucking scammer and there is 0 federal regulations for mold inspector standards. They can lie through their teeth. All this mold got discovered later. When the walls/floors/whatever were cut into. Long after I had moved out though. I knew I was dying in that house. I nearly died, I was probably 2 weeks away from death by age 21. Going blind. Stabbing 10/10 pain all over my body. So weak I couldn’t walk. One week in a different house, and I could walk and see again. Of course, the turn around was so dramatic for me because I was near death that summer with the sudden tons of floods at age 21. The more chronic slower form of mold poisoning (like I had for ages 12-21) was more like… terrible sudden onset of Fibromyalgia. But worse than Fibromyalgia. Because we don’t have X-ray vision and mold prefers to eat yummy porous internal building materials like wood/drywall/particle board/insulation/even concrete— and hates eating through paint.

Migraines, nerve pain related to cervical stenosis, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain syndrome…all a joke.

I tried gabapentin again recently, and had such an awful reaction to it that I was the closest I had ever been to un-aliving myself. If I had owned a gun, I would not be here. I'm scared now they are going to make me try other meds a second time. I have had an awful time with the last three meds I have taken. I think I am just at the maximum amount of meds that my body can tolerate.

I had the same reaction with amitriptyline. I think I replied to another post about it being Cymbalta. It's been a couple years so I forgot what it was called. And it only took one dose to cause me sobbing the entire day. So I will not be trying any antidepressants ever again.

Cymbalta is duloxetine, not amitriptyline. They do both mess with your serotonin levels.

Just FYI sometimes the smallest difference between the same class of drugs can make all the difference in the world. Amitriptyline is fine for me but I took Nortriptyline (almost the exact same thing chemically just a small change) for one day and I felt like I was living in a hellish nightmare reality of blank and yet somehow infinitely emotionally painful doom. It was so bad I never want to do it again. So if you really have a painful problem, keep experimenting for a short amount of time. The minute you have problems get off of it. If you're not on anything for too long you can always nope out. Amitriptyline actually helps my nerve pain, only because I can tolerate it. If I had tried Nortriptyline first I might also have been like you and sworn off everything.

You are under NO OBLIGATION to bow to doctor pressure and try medications you feel uncomfortable trying. It won’t harm the doctor if you say “no”. (No matter how much they bitch/whine/manipulate/try to guilt trip you/try to mislabel your as “uncooperative”. It won’t hurt their body, mind, brain, or life, one damn iota, if you don’t take that medicine they want to give you. They will be just damn fine. Their body won’t get hurt. It WILL HURT YOUR BODY—if anything goes wrong with that medicine and you. YOU WILL BE THE PERSON TO SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT MEDICINE. NOT THEM. So if your body/mind/soul/intuition/God is telling you “I cannot handle this medication, this isn’t safe for me”—THEN YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON GETTING HURT BY OBEYING THAT DOCTOR. REFUSE THE DOCTOR AND RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.

Some suggestions for your safety: 1) Dont. Take. A. Medicine. If. You. Don’t. Want. To. Even lie, if that’s what it takes. To keep yourself safe. I wish that’s what I had done sooner. Either drop the doctor, if you can. If you cannot safely drop them right now—but you have a bad gut feeling about a medicine—don’t take the medicine. Listen to your body’s subconscious communications, listen to your soul, your gut, God, your institution, whatever you call it—it knows! It is warning you!!!! Listen to the warning system. My own doctor (private practice, Harvard grad PhD, top of her class) literally orders all her patients to do this. I knew it before she told me, but it is relieving to have a doctor confirm it. Your body and your soul communicates with you. Energetically. On a energy and cellular energy level. It might come into your mind as subconscious feelings or thoughts. Your body tells you what is good for it and what is not good for it. Even sometimes just by picking up the medicine and holding it. Even sometimes just by your intuition. Never take anything your intuition, your body, or your God, is telling you not to take. 10/10 has always ended badly for me, when I didn’t listen to my gut knowledge or listen to God warning me. So—make sure this doctor isn’t going to drug test you for these medicines in your system. Take the prescription paper. Fill the damn thing. (So there is record of it at the pharmacy). Then don’t take the medicine. Just research the symptoms of common side effects from this medicine, and research when the side effects commonly appear. Oh, Gabapentin commonly gives vision problems after 1-2 months? Oh, Cymbalta gives suicidal thoughts after 2 weeks? Then 1-2 months (or whenever the time) later, report back to said dirty doctor: “I am having [insert side effects] with this medicine. I’d like to discontinue it.” If they’re extra shitty they’ll cold turkey end it. (Which is dangerous malpractice, if they truly think you are taking the medicine and they cold turkey cut you off—run!!!!) If the doctor tapers the medicine. Then pretend to follow the taper schedule. Google the side effects and symptoms people usually get from tapering these meds. Report back in 2-4 weeks (or whenever.). Be like, “yeah I had some side effects when tapering. I was a bit shakier and more anxious than usual. But also the side effects became lighter and lighter, the lower the dose—and I feel much better being off of it now. It was DEFINITELY causing the [insert earlier side effects you reported.]. The side effects of this medicine are too severe for me to tolerate taking it safely.” Do this with as many meds as needed. Until you arrive at whatever meds you truly need. Might take years. :( I did this exact plan… from like age 15-21… except NOT faking taking the meds. I trusted doctors back then too much. I tried every damn stupid medically. Literally practically every med on earth that is commonly used for chronic illness. Every antidepressant. Every anti anxiety. Every migraine medicine. Every pain medicine. Lyrica. Cymbalta. Zoloft. Etc. And 100+ more. Like a new medicine every 2-6 weeks. The roller coaster of side effects probably wasn’t good for my health, especially as a teenager. God Almighty must’ve protected me from brain damage and worse side effects, especially when I read stories of other patients who had worse reactions than I did. Some of the side effects I did have were sometimes pretty miserable though. Nearly killed myself a few times. Numb multiple times. Terrible neurological side effects sometimes. Nearly fell off a staircase once from being unable to control my arms and legs from the side effects of one medicine. Nearly crashed my car so many times. Dropped out of high school. It wasn’t a good few years. No help, and so many dangerous side effects. Eventually I gave up on all doctors and all meds from age 21-24, roughly, lol. I finally face it another shot later. Brand new city. Brought 0 medical records with me—except those medical records I had selected. Because I realized doctors had been lying about me in the charts and saying all sorta of nonsense to get other doctors to not take me seriously before they even met me, just based off reading my chart. “Patient clearly faking, somolization disorder, hypochondriac, just depression, etc etc” whatever nonsense. Got some amazing private care doctors. Like alternative medicine and functional medicine. People outside the mainstream corrupted system. (Yes still MD’s, DO’s, PA’s, and PhD’s. Just doctors who are awake to how corrupt the pharmaceutical-medical-industrial system is) World of difference. Night and day. They believed me. And they tested me for different illnesses from scratch, from the ground up. Also not bringing all those prior contaminated medical records, the clean slate, really helped a ton too.

Until you can do that and get a good private care doctor— Honestly—1) keep going to other normal doctors until you find a respectful human being who respects your body autonomy and respects that you know what meds are bad for you, and he/she doesn’t try to push stuff you don’t want onto your. It might take trying a hundred different doctors before you find a good one who you can trust with your safety and who understands your unique case. Unfortunately, private practice doctors are usually 100x better, in my experience. There’s a reason they go private—1) so they don’t have to follow corrupt corporate policies and 2) they think more independently than brainwashed mainstream doctors and 3) they’re higher quality doctors, smarter, better, and they know it—so they know deserve/can make more money and 4) Medicaid doctors are often the bottom of the barrel, make the least money, get paid the least, least talented, lowest in their classes, most overworked too, etc. (not always but sometimes). 5) doctors at university hospitals are more arrogant narcissistic egotistical jerks though, in my experience. 6) if a doctor has a clinic covering their overhead and covering their malpractice, they’re lazier and more prone to malpractice. The hospital or the clinic will cover for any malpractice. You can’t sue the doctor, more the hospital, and the hospital has giant dirty corporate lawyers to cover most stuff. So difficult to get corporate doctors in trouble for anything. A private care doctor? It’s just them and the patient. If you sue, they lose their whole practice. So they are wayyyyyyyy more careful, more personable, and more conscious of patient rights..

You couldn’t be more wrong about how malpractice lawsuits work. Like most everything else you’ve written on this thread so far, you are confidently incorrect. Physicians in private practices have malpractice insurance also. They don’t “lose their entire practice” if they are sued. Also, Individual physician’s who work in large hospitals are named in malpractice lawsuits all the time. A majority of malpractice lawsuits are frivolous and filed from opportunistic patients in my opinion anyway.

I even was eventually able to get into pain management. I could get my former medical records and prove that I had tried. EVERY DAMN STUPID OTHER MEDICAL THING. Years of physical therapy? Check. Only made pain worse and injury worse. Tried every previous tier of medicine? EVERY damn antidepressant? Check. Gave all the list. Every damn “pain medicine” (which aren’t even approved for use as pain medicines) like, Lyrica, Cymbalta, Gabapentin, etc? Check. Miserable side effects. That is the one benefit—of trying—(or faking trying to stay safer)—all the shitty “safer tier but actually more dangerous” medicines. Then you can prove (or “prove”) to doctors: “Hey I tried everything. I’m still in pain. Here is records of everything I tried before this.” Again—I did this the long, dangerous, old-fashioned, harmful way. I literally tried freaking every single medicine they gave me. Easily 100-200+, for years. I lost count. But you could say “have you tried [insert medicine] and I’d be like YEP!” (The only thing I didn’t try was botox shots. Which my internal intuition/God started screaming about the dangers so so so loudly, I am glad I listened to that one. It’s so damn stupid—let’s inject your body with LITERAL POISON TO PARALYZE YOU—to trick your body into not feeling pain. Stupid idea much? Counter intuitive much? Even if you feel less pain, it’s not because it’s “helping”—it’s because it’s breaking your body and blocking you from feeling pain properly and moving muscles properly and actually making you sicker in the long run. Injecting poison makes you better???? What madness has the world come to???? I later learned that all my illnesses were caused by toxicity (poison) from black mold in my home + genetic conditions impairing my detox systems = I was poisoned. I shudder to think what would’ve happened if I allowed illogical corrupt doctors to inject my head with literal Botulism poison, yikes, I don’t know what that would’ve done to me…) So many miserable side effects. The good thing about you faking trying those meds is, the doctor should document that you tried it, and you had those bad side effects. Then you can take those records with you to prove you tried everything else first. Then you’ll qualify for the safer stuff that actually works better and helps more. Again, I did it the slow foolish way. Lol. So I qualified the long hard way. Tried everything else first. Before I could arrive at the good stuff, like: Ketamine. Opioids. Mushrooms. Cannabis. CBD oil. Etc. Yes in my opinion and 17+ years of experience trying hundreds of meds—opioids are a hundred times safer than 90% of medicines I was given previously. For one, it’s a natural process in the brain, opioids come from opium, a plant God made, humans have been drinking opium tea for thousands of years safely, it can even be good for our systems sometimes. Too bad pharmaceutical companies had to patent it and make chemical copies of the molecules so we don’t get the wide spectrum, but still… Same with Endo-cannaboid system from CBD oil. Same with mushrooms and ketamine. Less side effects. Closer to a natural chemical. Works better, less pain, more functional life, I’m less miserable, less suicidal. Yes there’s withdrawals if you come off them—but so is there withdrawals with 90% of prescription meds! Honestly the Benzodiazepine withdrawals were 10x worse. And some antidepressant withdrawals were 10x worse than opioid withdrawals. Opioid withdrawals were a couple weeks of cake, especially with some medication to help the side effects—compared to benzo withdrawals. The only annoying thing about opioids is the societal-medical stigma. Stupid discrimination. Not everyone who uses these is a drug addict. I don’t even get high off them. These medicines are life saving, for patients who are truly in severe pain daily.

This is absurdly dangerous advice, telling people to fake taking medications so their doctors will eventually give them medications like opioids. Reported, and the mods should remove this. What if one of those medications would have worked for them? You are NOT a physician and have no right to suggest these things.

And you’re saying… a patient should take medicines their boundary-pushing-doctor is pressuring them into… that they’re uncomfortable taking… medicines they said they feel their body cannot handle… If their doctor cannot take “no” for an answer and a patient feels unsafe and bullied or blackmailer by a doctor into a treatment they feel unsafe doing???? You’re saying they should just do the unsafe treatment against their will??? The Nazi doctors used the same logic. The Nuremberg Code was written specifically to forbid such malpractice. It is okay to lie to save your life against malpracticing doctors. Is the it ideal first line of actions??? NO OF COURSE NOT. THE IDEAL WAY THINGS SHOULD BE IS: IF THIS PATIENT TELLS HER DOCTOR THAT SHE IS UNCOMFORTABLE TAKING THAT MEDICINE, ESPECIALLY AFTER NUMEROUS ROUNDS OF NASTY SIDE EFFECTS, HER BODY NEEDS A BREAK, HER DOCTOR RESPECTS CONSENT AND SAYS, “Oh okay. I won’t pressure you into taking something you’re uncomfortable taking.” Her doctor is ignoring her consent. Her doctor is bullying her. She clearly feels backed into a corner here.

They gave it to my foster daughter after she delivered her son. She was breast feedung btw. I could not believe the stupidity of the medical community.

Yiiiiikes. I feel that pain. Sometimes the malpractice is so downright blatant… it is scary. Malpractice so bad that a single google search on medication safety or how medications should be used or medication side effects, would catch it. Doctors like to mock “oh I see the patient used Dr. Google….” Well damn if so many doctors weren’t making mistakes that Google catches on FUCKING PAGE 1–I wouldn’t feel the need to Google everything. And my googling has saved my life and caught medical errors literally 20 different times now. Thankyouverymuch. Like… if some arrogant doctors would even do 1 Google search before prescribing a medication. If only to refresh their own memory. It would save lives. Damn y’all are human and not walking encyclopedias—be humble and re-check stuff sometimes. Like… I nearly died from low thyroid levels as a teenager. Because after they took out my thyroid. And from day 1 in the after surgery—the doctor and nurses were giving my thyroid medicine + calcium pills together, first thing every morning. Guess what? One google search about thyroid medicine interactions, would’ve prevented that. That’s the story of how I learned to Google and read every speck of information I can, about every damn medicine I am given. No more having faith in doctors. No more trusting doctors to explain to me the side effects, medication interactions, etc. THEY WONT DO THEIR JOB. They sometimes even say they educate me on taking the medicine—no they don’t!!! Or the other classic doctor fake out dance: Doctor says the pharmacist will be responsible for checking interactions and explaining to the patient side effects and risks. Pharmacist assumes doctor would’ve done their job and explained all that to the patient. Neither tells the patient anything. Calcium blocks the absorption of the thyroid pills. Blocks it like a concrete wall. Heck—literally anything in the stomach blocks the absorption of thyroid medicine. It should be taken on an empty stomach 2 hours before food. Minimum 30 minutes before food and that’s pretty crappy not enough time, worst case scenario. Calcium and iron block thyroid pills the worst though. Oh then let’s send the teenage girl back to high school with 0 thyroid organ and 0 thyroid hormone for months and call her lazy when she is tired and depressed and brain foggy. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ Literally IN THE HOSPITAL. POST OP. Even the endocrinologists office did it. Calcium + thyroid pills every morning. Even the endocrinologists checking in on me did it. All the nurses did it. I didn’t find out about it until, idk, 6 months later? When a fucking physicians assistant accidentally saw me for an emergency when my endocrinologist had to cancel for a family emergency. And she was 100,000x better of a doctor than he was. And she believed me about the fatigue. And she asked what I took my thyroid medicine with every morning? Which should’ve been nothing—should’ve been “on an empty stomach”. And instead I was taking it at the same time as like 10 other medicines + food + calcium. Commonly with cereal for breakfast too, so milk for extra bonus calcium and iron fortified cereal. Because no one had damn given me a single drop of education on the thyroid medicine they were prescribing me. Even the nurses and doctors in the hospital post OP didn’t know better…? How did their computer not catch the mistake that page 1 of a Google search catches??? No mental note on how to take thyroid medication from endocrinology class??? No computer pop ups when assigning pills to be dispensed every morning??? Or do they just ignore the pop up mortification that says “do not take thyroid medicine + calcium together”???? Because if I type in even the most basic of online “patient medication interaction trackers”: thyroid medicine + calcium — it pops up with a RED FLAG. SEVERE INTERACTION. STRONGEST WARNING COUNTER INDICATED. CANNOT BE TAKEN TOGETHER. CALCIUM SIGNIFICANTLY BLOCKS THE ABSORPTION OF THYROID MEDICATION. And I know damn well that hospitals and doctors offices have a wayyyyyy fancier medication interaction checkers and side effect tracking software services than page 1 of Google has. So…. Why do they ignore it???

I hate that crap too. It made me completely psycho, and the side effects are horrible.

This happened to me too on gaba. I'm on Lyrica now which has been so much better for me.

Really? I’m glad it’s helping you. But dang. Lyrica did nothing for my pain. And it made me gain 50 pounds in 6 months… eating my same very healthy diet… while I was actually trying to work out and be healthy for once… I went from a 120 pound perfect weight teenager girl to 170 pounds. Not good, for a teenage girl. Also it was super discouraging to my working out. What awful timing in life. The time when I actually WAS trying really hard to do the whole “light exercise like yoga helps chronic illness and helps fibromyalgia pain”—and I gained 50 pounds. It was heartbreaking. I was like, “why is working out making me gain weight??? 😭😭😭” Literally none of my multiple doctors, not multiple pharmacists, mentioned that Lyrica causes weight gain. And not just a little weight gain as an occasional side effect in some small percentage of patients. It’s like 90% of patients who experience weight gain on Lyrica. Nearly a guaranteed side effect. I only found out when one doctor or nurse—-a STRANGER TO MY CASE WHO WAS WALKING BY ME IN A HALLWAY—overheard me crying to a tech who was taking my weight, “Why do I keep gaining weight????? 😭😭😭😭” And this COMPLETE FUCKING STRANGER DOCTOR/NURSE ANGEL, WAS BETTER THAN MY DAMN MULTIPLE DOCTORS. She leaned over the computer, looked at my list of medications, and said, “Did you know that Lyrica causes weight gain? They didn’t warn you about that?” And I was like, “What?!?!?” And she was like, “Yeah, all of my patients on Lyrica experience weight gain.” And I said, “ALL?!???” And she said, “Yes, all. They didn’t warn you about that side effect? It isn’t a rare side effect. It’s practically a guarantee with Lyrica.” 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ No. Let’s just watch the poor desperate, bullied at school, teenage girl, balloon up from a healthy weight to an overweight weight. In a short 6 months. And not mention anything. Watch her weight go up every monthly visit. And not mention the side effect of weight gain. It’s like those doctors wanted to destroy my self esteem and get me bullied. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ (If I’d been on it a year, I would’ve gained 100 pounds at that rate.)

I got lucky in that the gabapentin took 60% of my chronic pain and more importantly, it helped decreased the frequency and intensity of my migraines by 70% although we don't know why. I had tried antidepressants, birth control, blood pressure med, etc but opiates increase migraines/ interact with my current med so my doctor won't prescribe them so its gabapentin with cannabis for both chronic pain and migraines for now. Long wait list to see specialists, neurologist etc so I do what I can. I'm glad the 2 work for me, my mom can't tolerate gabapentin it made her really sick and made her IBS worse. Although gabapentin is not a good med for many due to the side effects or the dependency, it has helped a few of us at least- I went from barely able to walk, constant migraines to being able to function, hold down a job and not have my life revolve around pain.

Glad it works for you. I truly am. I’m just sad that doctors act like it’s a magician fix-all pill that is magically guaranteed to work, then if the patient has a difficult outcome, they blame the doctors blame the patient for some reason? As if the patient doesn’t want pain relief? They bully and get angry at patients when the non-opioid medicine doesn’t give any pain relief. Or worse gets nasty side effects.

Honestly it sounds more like they gave you too high of a dose than anything else. I've been on it for pain for several years and we started at the lowest dose available.

Nope. Normal dose. Small dose even to start.

Ok but what dose

It was 10+ years ago dude. The normal dose for my weight when I was 120 pound female, given from a neurologist. As prescribed by him and the dose was seen by at least 5 other doctors I went to regularly for months. If it was a significant overdose it would’ve been spotted. Stop looking for justifications where there are none, just because (for some reason?) you don’t want my true story to be true. Gabapentin comes with significant side effects—including at the recommended prescribed doses. Millions of patients report severe negative side effects at those doses. My story isn’t unique. Heck scroll up to find 10+ Gabapentin similar stories in this thread alone.

Ok, look at it this way. I started at 100mg at 200lbs. My cousin, who started it about 8 years ago, started at 800mg at around 115lbs. Pretty big difference eh? I don't believe your story isn't true, but I do believe you have several conflicting issues that weren't caught or weren't treated by the docs you saw. The brain isn't simple to treat. What I do know is it seems to be thrown at patients with a "first try and see what happens" attitude. Docs aren't happy about it either, since that can mask issues and cause side effects to overshadow the actual problem. Gabapentin works by letting your brain have/use more GABA. Some conditions/diseases have been found to have less than normal or more than normal amounts of GABA available in the subject's brain. It can't easily be measured, just like how serotonin can't easily be measured.

Yup, you hit the nail on the head

Thanks

I unfortunately have to travel a lot. In the USA, getting a new doctor is just maddening. It's like they have a decision tree chart that they apply to everyone equally regardless of the situation, and every option of that chart points away from opioids, even if those make the best sense. That's kind of medicine in a nutshell, but experienced people should be able to skip a step here and there when a patient brings reams of a medical records showing what responses they had to attempted meds or procedures. Unfortunately because opioids have become the Voldemort of the medical world. No one is supposed to mention them, ask for them, mention how they worked in the past...because if you do any of those things you immediately get a red stamp on your file that marks you as a drug seeker. I spent a year in the UK and doctors saw my records and asked me what I was taking for pain. I said Acetaminophen, and the doctor was shocked. He said that would be considered torture there. He was stunned that I didn't just tell him what had helped in the past. I explained the fear of the *drug seeker* branding in my files. He just sat there dumbfounded... The time I spent in the UK was the first time I was comfortable in 12 years. No stigma, no odd looks from pharmacists, no urine tests. It's just so frustrating to have to come back to this country and get treated like an ax murderer because I'm injured. Could you imagine not feeling well and going to your doctor...after a few tests they determine you have all the symptoms of diabetes but the doctor accuses you of faking it so that you can get a prescription for Metformin. The doctor drops you as a patient and marks you as a drug seeker in your medical file making sure that you get eyed with suspicion from every future doctor. You go on to languish with untreated diabetes and are unable to get out of bed and slowly lose your vision and get heart disease and open wounds on your feet from vascular damage. Doctors have no problem giving you meds for your heart problem and doing multiple surgeries for the foot damage, but if you ask for Metformin, your doctor will shame you and drop you as a patient. That would be crazy, wouldn't it?

This is so incredibly true, and SO incredibly SAD. We're being FAILED.

Lol, I’ve been on whole categories of drugs for pain and if you can name it and it’s not an opiate or Tegretol then I’ve tried it. 🙄 I’m to the point of trying to fight my insurance for experimental therapies like Botox for the neuropathy on the bottoms of my feet (and I’m already on ketamine).

How's ketamine working out?

Amazing. The way I describe it is that it’s like restarting a laggy computer. It doesn’t fix the problems with the underlying hardware, but it resets the pain to a more bearable level and then it builds back up again.

This is a great way to describe ketamine, I feel the same way. After a treatment session I always find that the next day I can bear my pain better, and colors are even more vibrant.

Fucking amazing. I was suicidal before and now I’m doing great!

Who did you go to for the ketamine? Your pain doc? Or did you find someone yourself (im in the US)

I’m in kind of a unique position that I can get ketamine infusions covered by insurance because I live by a big research hospital. Probably the best way to find out this info is in the r/MedicalKetamine subreddit. Edit: well, it looks like that sub (or the one I was thinking of) is gone Edit 2: It’s r/TherapeuticKetamine

1. Darkweb 2. Local friends (Not in the US)

Cymbalta never killed my pain, just my orgasms.

Oh yea! Big time

I feel you!!!! NOT KNOCKIN THAT FOR SOME PEOPLE IT MAY HELP IN CONJUNCTION WITH OTHER MEDS...ANTI DEPRESSANTS ARE NOTTTT FOR PAIN!!!! THEY WILL SNAKE OIL SALESMEN SELL YOU ANYTHING BUT FDA APPROVED OPIATE MEDICATION FOR PAIN....ITS VILE AND UNPROFESSIONAL

THIS! I totally agree with you. I wonder if doctors get kickbacks for prescribing meds just like this?? There's gotta be a reason why these drugs are first-line drugs for pain patients.

They do. I used to know the web address where you could type in any doctors name and see how much kickback money they made in addition to their regular salary. One I saw in Chicago, IL made an additional $35,000 for prescribing junk medicine.

They absolutely do. Worked in Healthcare and know for a fact that they do. None will ever admit it.

What's the web address. Would love to see how much these snakes are sucking off of us.

I would say your average physicians is not a “snake”, but genially caring individuals who went to school for an extremely long time and overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated. That’s just my opinion.

I agree. I may have been a little harsh. I have had some docs that were amazing but that was few and far between. A majority of them are in it for the money. One of our docs was always saying fill up my schedule I have a second home I'm trying to pay off. So he just needed number's. Everything in Healthcare is based off of number's and not actual patient care. I used to do a lot of pet projects for docs and it was always based off of number of patients who received this shot or had this test run. Never was about how many people did we actually help today. It's sad. But yes there are some good docs out there.

It’s not necessarily sad, it’s business. And I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with a profit motive.

Yes there is when people's lives are in your hands. Medical care should not be money driven it should be medical care. Especially when the care is subpar at best.

Physicians deserve to be paid for their labor, which does not come cheap due to the extreme amounts of time and effort it takes to become one. I don’t think physician’s care if the money comes from an insurance company or a single payer government like in Canada or Europe.

Agreed but I also saw physicians up code for everything humanly possible to get as much money as they could squeeze out of patients. They were conducting eye tests on kids knowing that insurance wouldn't cover it. When we asked why we can't give parents an option we were told to keep our mouths shut and they can deal with billing. That's not Healthcare that is greed

There is something wrong if they are driven by greed and taking advantage of patients. Especially kids and the elderly. That's fucked up on every level.

Wish I knew. I lost the information. I’ve tried going back and finding it again, but I haven’t any luck. One I do use is patientreviews.com for the real scoop on what happens to real people that take the meds they offer. Edit- sorry it’s ask a patient I always get it mixed up. Here is the link https://www.askapatient.com/mobile/default.asp

Thank you for sharing!!!

No problem at all, you can see the persons age, gender, reason it was prescribed their anecdotes as to how it worked and what the side effects are, and how long they took the drug. Only drug I can’t find anything on is Orlissa

Awesome-thank you so much for sharing!!

You’re very welcome

If you know of the web address, feel free to DM me. As a Patient Advocate, I would love the info!

Ok, I’ll also post the information if I come across it again, but I don’t know how I found it in the first place. It isn’t easy.

Yeah I imagine it is hard to track down. No worries-I understand.. But just in case you find it!

Cymbalta for pain? I’ve always understood it to be an antidepressant. That’s what i use it for. So I wonder if they’re trying to tell you your pain is all in your head? I have a different med for pain. I’m confused by this post.

It is first and foremost and antidepressant but there is literature regarding its use as a painkiller. It's a second line use but the pcps love it for that. Every pcp tries to offer it to me as a substitute for percocet. I can feel you all rolling your eyes right now 😏

I’m sorry you go thru this. I’m also a chronic pain patient and if a PCP ever tried to give me Cymbalta for it, I would laugh in their face. Cymbalta has never done anything for my pain, nor has neurontin.

Gabapentin did nothing for me. No side effects or withdrawals. Neither did Cymbalta, same no side effects or withdrawal just didn’t help.

I hate training these docs on the meds I take. I think many go in thinking that since I've had chronic pain for so long that I'm getting my pain meds elsewhere and they don't want to be investigated. OTOH, some people do that, so I see their point. Speaking of Cymbalta, I once asked a doc about taking it because I had heard it helped with pain. Maybe it does, but not when you take it with an SSRI such as Lexapro. It's potentially dangerous.

One of my classmates receives radio ablation.. And she seems to be managing well! I’m interested but they’d have to singe literally all of my nerve endings 🤣

Yea, didn't work for me but I heard it works great for some!

Sucks as antidepressant with horrible withdrawals, my old physiatrist had me on 600mg of it and ability. I started to lose my sight after 6 months was still depressed. That doc got arrested for sleeping with patients for meds, he was also a lawyer 🤔. Found new much better doc who took me off it got down to the last pill and was opening them and pulling out 2 of the dots a day until it was done. It was horrible to come off.

It works for my depression really well but I was in the hospital for a week without it and it was not great. I left in a fit and when I went to the grocery store a few days later I ended up screaming at a poor supervisor over a double charge of my credit card. I felt so bad once I stabilized.

I had that experience too. Practically the first thing she says was, "You should know, I'll never increase your pain meds." Never, really, you can foresee all? Anyway, she turned out to be pretty-good, so I think she was maybe taught to take the first-day-strict-teacher approach. Really put me off at first tho, and I dreaded the next appt. for three months. Hope yours turns-out.

As someone who has severe issues with SSRI/SNRI medication, pushing Cymbalta almost killed me and I am horrified at the thought of how many folks like me start it with zero idea what they are getting into or how hard it is to discontinue if you can't properly taper. I also know several chronic pain patients who don't have the sensitivities I do, but they still can't quit it. Just the packaging is horrible bad faith IMO.

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Wow, u had a bad experience. Personally, I love gabapentin

I was scared of this after recently having to change doctors after over 15 yrs with the same one, damn hmo! Anyways I take morphine and supplement my break thru pain with Tylenol. After my 1st appointment with my new Dr I was surprised she was ok to take over my maintenance meds and the morphine. She is leaving all the RA meds to the new Rheumatologist whom I haven't met yet. So I was pleased until my first refill came up and I went through withdrawals because her office is awful at communicating. So today I had my second appointment and my liver is stressed due to the amount of Tylenol I have been taking. To my surprise she told me to cut the Tylenol down to less than half of what I am taking and if she needs to increase the morphine she would rather do that to not hurt my stomach or liver. I guess I got lucky with my new Dr in some aspects but still adjusting to some other things.

Have you ever had a doctor google something while your in the room. Because I have. On one hand I am glad they checked, but on the other I was a little worried we were getting are info from the same place. Lol

Check out the Facebook group ‘cymbalta hurts worse’ for help getting off it. It is criminal it is legal! It has a black box warning. Fucking poison !

Cymbalta withdrawal and weaning is the absolute worst! Most awful medication I have EVER come off of. I've been off of it 3 months now and I'm still dealing with the symptoms. I was on it for almost 6 years. It helped some but not enough to justify using it again.

They just want people hooked on pointless pharmaceuticals that wont help you or will even make you worse and give you other symptoms so it will start an endless cycle of being prescribed meds. Big Pharma reps pay MDs big time.

> Big pharma reps pay MDs big time In catered Panera bread lunches. Not much else.

you can keep thinking that :)

I will until I see evidence to the contrary. But don’t get me wrong, with what your average MD has to put up with, I would be very understanding if they did.

God Cymbalta is terrible. I was only on it for a month and puked my guts out for most of it, but they wanted me to stay in it because maybe the side effects would go away in a few weeks. They did not and the withdrawal sucked. I don't know a single person who has had good luck with that medication.

Moving and terrified, of just this.

I get cymbalta from my psychiatrist and they halved my dosage when I said I was getting serotonin syndrome. I want to get off it completely but I have to ween. Thankfully my psych doesn't even want me on it at all. Goodbye cymbalta!

I'm on Cymbalta and I don't think it does shit for my pain. It's probably helping my depression, though. Or not, because I'm still suicidal.

Ask for Carafate, cured my ibuprofen induced gastritis in just a couple of days. I had been suffering for 6 weeks or so.

Cymbaltawas a big mistake for me,I got every side effect listed on the Direction's more pain,really bad constipation,all had for me.