Has Gabapentin helped anyone out there?

@sharshy I take it when I get up between 5-7 am and after dinner between 8-9 pm and it has reduced my cramps and pain greatly. I still have occasional tingling and numbness. But I love it.

Just like any other medication, Gabapentin will work for some and not for others. Some people will have bad side effects and others will find relief. And like any other medication there are risks.

I take Gabapentin and it has relieved my arm and leg pain and that in turn enables me to sleep at night.

People need different dosages and may need to take it multiple times a day.

I think it is important to work closely with your doctor and let them know if it is not working well for you and to discuss risk benefits for your particular situation.

Good luck and I hope you feel better...

I take 300 mg of gabapentin two or three times a day for idiopathic neuropathy made worse by chemo for breast cancer 5 years ago. It helps the stinging in my feet a lot. I think it also has a calming effect on me. I'm 84 years od.

I take gabapentin at bedtime, 900 mg. W/o it, sleep is delayed and is much more fitful. With it, sleep comes soon (within 20 minutes or less). Everyonce in a while I'll forgot to take it at night; now I now why I can't go to sleep. So I get up and take it.

I have been taking gabapentin for about 18 years now. My current dose is 300 mg breakfast, lunch and dinner and 900 bedtime.
When I first started taking it it was at the lower dose, 200 mg twice a day and my neurologist encouraged me to try to find the dosage that works for me. I have taken near the maximum dosage, 3000 mg per day spread out between 4 doses and it worked very well but I have since gradually lowered it because it does make me tired and causes memory problems for me at that dose.
The last time I saw my neurologist I asked about the dementia link and she said there were studies but practically this drug has been around for a long time and it hasn’t really played out. So I’m choosing to continue taking it and try to do everything I can to keep the rest of my body as healthy as possible.
Gabapentin saved my life. I seriously doubt that I’d be able to walk without it, the pain was that great.

It nearly killed me. Made me dizzy. Walked into walls. Finally stopped it. Dr didn’t tell me to WEAN off of it. I spent three days in bed crying and wishing I was dead!!!! Don’t stop cold turkey!!!!

It works VERY well, but your body gets dependent on it. I only use it occasionally for Fibromyalgia flares. I also don’t go above 100mg to 200mg gabapentin, then wean off using Tizanidine or cyclobenzaprine or CBD oil. You can layer gabapentin with those others to kill off a pain flare, then ween off. Do not consent to 300mg for 3x a day. That’s a formula for systemic disaster that’s hard to fix.

@insistantsnail
I disagree that taking gabapentin on a regular basis is a disaster that's hard to fix. Gabapentin works best when allowed to reach therapeutic levels in the blood.
I took 3,600 mg of gabapentin for years with no problems at all, as has my brother along with countless others.
Jake

Some history from ACA on gabapentin. The go to drug when we don't know
I've taken it to block back pain, hot flashes, help sleep because of pain since 2014 usually less than 300mg

Gabapentin is a nonprotein amino acid and a synthetic neurotransmitter that is related to γ-aminobutyric acid1 (GABA). It was first described in 1976 West German patent DE2460891 on cyclic amino acids to Gerhard Satzinger and co-inventors at Goedecke AG (Freiburg). The corresponding US Patent is 4,024,175 (1977).

Gabapentin crosses the blood–brain barrier more easily than GABA. In the early patents, the Goedecke researchers noted that the compound is a sedative; and in mice, it prevented seizures triggered by a GABA antagonist. Preliminary clinical trials in the 1980s indicated that gabapentin appeared to be effective against spasticity and migraines.

Under the trade name Neurontin, gabapentin was approved in 1993 in the United Kingdom for treating refractive epilepsy and by the US Food and Drug Administration as an adjuvant medication for partial seizures. Since then, its uses have steadily increased to treat conditions such as neuropathic pain, anxiety, sleep disorders, and drug dependence.

In a 2024 article in The New York Times, writer Paula Span quoted Michael Steinman, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, as saying this about gabapentin: “It’s become a we-don’t-know-what-else-to-do drug.”—especially among seniors. The interviewed patients were taking the drug off-label to treat the pain and fatigue of fibromyalgia, foot and leg pain from transverse myelitis, rheumatoid arthritis, agitation from dementia, and a host of other disorders.

1. CAS Reg. No. 56-12-2.