Side effects from Lyrica

I have commented on SCS elsewhere so sorry about any repeat. My Nevro is making a huge difference. At first I was frustrated and so was jumping around to different settings without waiting the suggested 48 hours between setting changes. Huge mistake! You have to let your body get used to the new settings. By working with the Nevro techs and making slow changes, I can now sit with only a tolerable amount of pain for the first time in years. I get up in the morning with enough energy to actually do the regular ADL’s. I really feel a connection b/t my pain level and energy level. I used to feel my pain almost as a weight dragging me down. This is not in my head. I know that when I was hurrying through changes without waiting 48 hours, I went to the highest setting and the SCS seemed to fail. I went back suddenly to the horrible pain I had prior to SCS. I called Nevro and started back with their guidance to the slow changes and it is absolutely helping SO much. It would be a terrible shame if Medicare quit covering it.

Once I reached the 3Xday, I had 9 days of total insomnia and contacted the doctor to help me switch back to Gabapentin. Lyrica must depend on the person.

MMJ is medical marijuana. I found that sublingual MMJ oils that combined a higher dose of CBD with a low dose of THC (20:1) to be somewhat effective for neuropathy -but these were originally prescribed for chronic pain. More recently I use CBD oil (50mg/ml) topically on feet for neuropathy and find it temporarily effective for short periods of time (just long enough to get to sleep) when combined with other essential oils like frankincense, rosemary, clove, menthol or camphor. It's an ongoing experiment.

Lyrica didn’t help my non length-dependent small fiber neuropathy pain at all and gave me terrible psychological problems. It made me dark, mean, agitated, and unconcerned about the consequences. When I finally got off of it a dark cloud moved out of my mind.

@jemock - About 3 or 4 years ago, my primary tried me on Lyrica, no help. At that time, I had some on again and off again pain in toes which is now nonexistent. At first, the doc gave me Gabapentin and it made me very agitated, very angry. Got off of that. After Gaba, tried Lyrica, no help and I did experience some degree of agitation but less. Got off of Lyrica. On Lyria, it was so noticeable that folks at my office were calling my wife and asking about my anger. My wife put two and two together. As soon as it was brought to my attention about my anger, I knew what the issue was and got off over 7 days. Have not tried either since. It does affect some people.

You take 100 mg three times a day??? Does it help the pain more??
I’ve only been taking 100 mg at night!

What did you start taking? Do you have painful neuropathy?

Reading ur post were you switching from gabapentin to lyrica or from lyrica to gabapentin?

I took gabapentin with no relief of neuropathic pain, not neuropathy. Switched to Lyrica 50 mg tbd. Tried to slowly increase to 100 mg tbd but had balance issues.

I am on Lyrica and it helps all my pain that comes from arthritis of the spine. But it makes me very, very sleepy.