Has Anyone Ever Tried "Gabapentin" For Your Epilepsy? | MyEpilepsyTeam (2024)

everything can be attected. i got used to keppra and phenobarbital. it did nothing (no good but no bad) but i took it so long... it is vary hard to ween off. gabapentin is the generitc... there is 3 brand names... Neurontin, Gralise, Horizant. everyone is different so 1 got it well, abouther is nutral and another is worst. here's the link... https://www.drugs.com/sfx/gabapentin-side-effec...

posted 13 hours ago

I actually have no adverse side effects to gabapentin. I was, at first, also hesitant to use it. Before using any medication I always research and read up on anything before using it. I want to know what to expect as in positives plus negatives. I am a cancer patient and have to take some really nasty stuff to try and get control of what the cancer is doing to my body. So from the side effects of my chemotherapy, has left me with a lot of nerve damage in my feet mostly. I have peripheral neuropathy in hands and feet. Also as my breast cancer had spread to my bones its caused nerve pain in my lower back and feet. Meaning it also affects my legs and left me with "restless legs syndrome". So the gabapentin calms all this down, suppresses the nerve pain in my back relieving my sciatic pains in the back of my legs. I am very gentle to my body except when I do my "hiit" exercises come in. I found that increasing my blood and oxygen levels in hiit training reduces pain in my feet so as to not have to increase my gabapentin doses.
You've heard of hiit? It's High Intensity Interval Training.
It's a 45 min workout on a spin bike or other type of exercise.
I use the spin bike, cranked up to the tension of a manual coaster bike going a slight uphill powered not by gears but only by your legs. I do a 10 minute comfortable stretching, then 5min warming up biking then a 20 -30 seconds of extreme fast pedaling until you just start to feel your leg muscles burn, then calm cycling to let your breath and muscles relax again. Which takes a couple minutes of easy cycling then do 7 more of these 20-30 second speed hits of reaching the burn with calm cycling in between. I found doing this once every other day helps prevent my foot pain. You see, since 2018 I have lost almost 75lbs as I was 252lbs and I'm 5'9" tall and was obese. My work at a sedentary job plus my carbohydrate diet caused my hormones to go out of whack and caused my cancer. My whole metabolic health was a total mess. I'm now down to 178lbs, no longer diabetic, no longer have hypertension, no longer asthmatic and I'm praying by getting my body back into proper metabolic health, it might help my cancer go into remission. That's the best I can pray for.
You should try the gabapentin as the dose I was on was certainly not addictive. When I delay my gaba by an hour, I know my pain comes back and it then takes an hour before the meds work again. Your doctor will work with you. You can ask your doctor about how much gabapentin is taken to cause a possible addiction. Tell your doctor about your concerns and I'm sure they will work with you to avoid addiction. You might only be on it for a few weeks and find out it does nothing for your seizure prevention. Then at least you know it's not an alternative. You won't have to think about it anymore.

posted 18 hours ago

Gabapentin is not that addictive, unless they give you a super high dose. Though it has to be increased and decreased gradually and that's a real pain. Too much figuring out. I was on it up to 900mg/day. 300 every 8 hours. Keep in mind I'm not epileptic by any means. I was prescribed it for severe pain in my lower back caused by the epimorphone injection into my spine to freeze my lower body to have a total knee replacement done back in sept of 2020. It's a teaching hospital and the nurse/anesthesiologist was learning where to inject, after poking me 5X in the wrong place!!! I was left with this terrible pain shooting in my right leg from my back. 6months on 900 gabapentin and I told my doctor I needed to be weaned off to find out if the pain is still there. As she kept asking how my back was. Duh! How can you say if your always drugged up with nerve suppression? So she agreed to help me wean off. There were certainly no cravings or desires. I came off really easy but it took a whole month.
Ps I'm back on it now due to the pain caused by my metastatic cancer in my lower spine, hips and ribcage. Though my dose is only 600mg/day that's 200mg every 8 hrs. Not enough to be addicted on.
Though don't count on it actually working for your epilepsy as it didn't work for my husband who is epileptic Though hasn't had a seizure in over 20 yrs. We have been on therapeutic Ketogenic diet for 5 yrs. He's been able to reduce his tegritol by half.

posted 19 hours ago (edited)

I was on it for a while, but we don’t think it was helpful for my seizures (and that’s what the most recent research is saying). But it is widely used for nerve pain, and so I am on it for my back. That’s the latest info I have been able to find (and my doctor has shared). The main side effect is fatigue.

posted 20 hours ago (edited)

I have not done so. I know it is an AED, but you can look it up. If this is a prescribed Med, your Doctors should know about Side Effects. Some are Controlled Drugs, but your Doctor would know and explain them.

posted 20 hours ago

A MyEpilepsyTeam Member asked a question 💭

A MyEpilepsyTeam Member asked a question 💭

A MyEpilepsyTeam Member asked a question 💭