If so, what can you tell me about the stuff?

3/2/2010 11:06:36 AM

my mom takes it for restless legs. she doesn't have any side effects from it. if she doesn't take it then her legs will keep her up all night.

other than that, all i know is that there are a LOT of off-label uses for it.

3/2/2010 11:08:12 AM

I took it for about 6 months for chronic back pain from spinal stenosis and bulging discs. It helped a lot, but then I lost my insurance and stopped taking all meds, fun.

My husband took it for about 3 months as a mood stabilizer, can't say it ever really helped though.

My grandmother takes it to help ease pain in her knees, with morphine and percocet, so I'm not sure what all the neurontin is doing, lol.

And se7entythree is right, there are a lot of off-label uses.

3/2/2010 11:36:48 AM

neurontin (gabapentin) its officially an antiepileptic(anticonvulsant)

it does have a lot of off-label use as it helps with chronic neuropathic pain.

also prescribed for migraines

lyrica(pregabalin) is also an antiepileptic fda approved for fibromyalgia.


antiepileptics are also often prescribed as mood stabilizers such as lamictal and depakote


http://www.rxlist.com/neurontin-drug.htm technical info in here

3/2/2010 12:53:17 PM

Used as a mood stabilizer for me. I have enough anxiety and depression for three people.

3/2/2010 1:10:27 PM

i tried it as a mood stabilizer, but it gave me debilitating headaches, facial numbness and a constant drowsy feeling

3/3/2010 2:34:37 AM

i take depakote. zero side effects and works really, really well for me.

3/3/2010 3:14:42 AM

I was prescribed loads of it for mood.

Seemed like a sugar pill to me.

Quote :

"There has been a growing controversy regarding the psychiatric off-label use of Gabapentin.[12] Although some small, non-controlled studies in the 1990s — mostly sponsored by gabapentin's manufacturer — suggested that gabapentin treatment for bipolar disorder may be promising,[12] other more recent and better controlled studies have found it to be no more effective (and in one study, slightly less effective) than placebo.[21] Subsequent to the corporate acquisition of the original patent holder, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer admitted that there had been violations of FDA guidelines regarding the promotion of unproven off-label uses for Gabapentin in the Franklin v. Pfizer case. Concerns about the distorting effects of Pfizer's research practices upon the represented efficacy of Gabapentin have been summarized for the Prescription Access Litigation project in an August 10, 2008 article written by Kay Dickersin, M.D, Ph.D, a scholar of publication bias at Brown University.[22]. Despite this controversy, many psychiatrists continue to prescribe it for a variety of off-label purposes. It is often tried as an alternative treatment, when patients are unable to tolerate the side effect of more proven mood stabilizers such as lithium; as or more frequently, it is prescribed on a speculative basis as an auxiliary treatment, when single-drug therapy has consistently failed to yield sufficiently positive results.[23]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabapentin

I'm pretty sure the last part in bold describes why it was prescribed to me, but it never had any notable affect on me at all. After learning more about Neurontin, I was pretty disappointed with my doctor at the time and stopped taking it. I guess I'm kind of more sympathetic with him now...he was just trying something and hoping it might have an effect. But he had me taking it like six times a day...it seemed like he was trying to trick me with a placebo...

3/3/2010 4:18:23 AM

this doesn't have anything to do w/ neurontin, but i take lamictal and it's great. i take it by itself, not in addition to anything else.

3/3/2010 8:20:33 AM

I look Neurontin for chronic pain, and it helped me for a little while (made me very sleepy) and then it seemed to stop working as well after quite awhile. I haven't taken it since. It's not a bad drug though for pain...I've just found other drugs to be more effective for chronic pain.

3/3/2010 1:15:20 PM

my dad had to take it when he had a brain tumor, it helped with the pain from the tumor pressing on his nerve that controls your face.

3/3/2010 4:19:32 PM

i mix it in with my large doses of oxymorphone for nerve pain. works decent. also nice to pop a couple before bed, it puts me out usually.

3/3/2010 10:56:39 PM

My dad took it many years ago. He had a variety of health issues (Emphysema, CHF, fully collapsed lung, chronic bronchitis, etc) but took it for chronic pain associated with not having a sternum (his sternum got infected after a triple bypass and, after many years of having to convince the doctors that his chest was infected, they finally took it out). His Chronic pain stemmed from the infection and the fact that every time he moved, he had bones rubbing together in his chest. On a side note, you could literally see his heart beating (it was just covered by a flap of skin).

Anyway, the neurontin didn't help him, but then again, he was eventually taken off of the neurontin and placed on high dosages of levorphanol and methadone, which barely alleviated his pain.

3/3/2010 11:50:27 PM

holy fuck, an infected sternum? that sounds horrible! i had a transsternal thymectomy so i understand his pain, sorta. mine didn't get infected. damn that sucks

3/4/2010 8:36:23 AM