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Comment by kanzenryu2 | Hacker News Reader

I was on Gabapentin for back/leg pain. The doctor warned that it was very important to ramp up the dose gradually, and ramp down gradually. I followed the advice carefully and had no issues. But it was tempting to think "I'm okay now, I won't need to take more pills".

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My doctor was awful and gave me no such warnings. I was only able to get off it through help from Reddit.

If you look up Gabapentin on Google, the top results will make you think its a Nqyuil-tier drug with mild side effects. But there are entire subreddits dedicated to it, and all of them filled with horror stories of people struggling with withdrawals.

Glad to be off it, but that one month of withdrawals was not fun. I’m as such hypersensitive to most medication and Gabapentin kind of broke me.

Not to minimize the risks, because they are very real and I’ve had my own adverse interactions with Gabapentin (not anything as bad as others), but one reason there are so many stories about it is that it is extremely heavily prescribed.

It is off label prescribed for everything from headaches to arthritis relief to anxiety. It has a complicated instruction set and as you mentioned some people are more sensitive to that than others (I’m on a fairly high dose and can skip a day with no major effects other than the symptoms it’s treating coming back).

One thing I don’t think we as a society don’t do well enough is explain how important dosing protocols are to people. Acetaminophen for instance is an extremely dangerous drug, yet most people take it without thought.

Google is only a mall nowadays.

When I need information I can trust, I go straight to Wikipedia. If it's high-impact, I also check references - Sci-Hub is a game-changer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabapentin#Withdrawal_and_depe...

Good on you for following his advice. An ex girlfriend of mine was on that stuff and ran out for a few days due to a fuckup at her pharmacy, and the abrupt stop caused a Grand Mal seizure which landed her in the hospital for two days. No previous history of epilepsy.

I was not told that you couldn't skip a dose or had to take it at the same time everyday. I had some family over and forgot to take my regular dose. Woke up at 5AM in the night with intense numbness all over my body, heart palpitations, an a feeling of dread. Legitimately thought I had a stroke.

Now I always wonder when I meet anyone who is acting "weird" or irrationally angry or irritable - how much of their behavior is caused by pharmaceuticals that they don't understand?

This is why I find videos on /r/publicfreakout and the like very hard to watch. It's not a nice feeling to gawk at somebody who is more likely than not under the influence of pharmacology - be it synthetic, or their brain's own neurochemistry.

A lot of doctors seem to be unaware of the dangers or don't take them seriously. Months later she met with another doctor for reasons unrelated to the seizure episode. The doctor wanted to take her off of Gabapentin (she was taking it on a permanent basis due to some chronic health issues) and told her to just go cold turkey. When asked if that was safe, the doctor said "Yeah, it's Gabapentin!", like there was obviously no issue.

I unfortunately met a lot of doctors through her that really opened my eyes to how many of them just don't give a fuck.

Yeah my doctor completely refused to acknolwedge that this stuff even had any withdrawals. Ascribed my symptoms to everything from heart issues to multiple sclerosis. Even though he knew I had zero symptoms before starting this medication, all my tests were clean, and I was on no medication at all.

At the very least, its ensured that I will never take any prescription medication without self-studying its side effects.

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