What are you drinking tonight?

[ck80]

Gaba is fine when you're on it. If I wasn't hurting that bad I'd just not take it. Bad idea, withdrawals come quickly. It was months after I got off of it completely until I felt normal again. This was on 3600mg/day for many months (most days I only took 2400). Next year I got Shingles and they prescribed it again, albeit at a much shorter lived dose that peaked at 1500/day. I was apprehensive, but also morbidly curious to confirm my theory that that's what it was and not me going insane. That was enough to confirm my theory, but luckily I didn't have to go through Hell again to get my answer. Would I take it again? Absolutely, they don't give it out until the pain (in my experience) is BAD. But would I ever consider a months long high dose? Hell the fvck no. Couple weeks in and out easy peasy. Any more and I'll just deal with the pain. YMMV but it's worth a Google. It wasn't but a couple months after getting off of it that I decided to look it up and find lots and lots of identical experiences.

My pain mgmt guy actually told me about a cme seminar he had talking about it, and, that meshes. I mentioned to him that missing doses of the muscle relaxants, the opioids, none of that had issues but you miss the gaba by a bit and the cold clammy sweat breaks out with chills etc - your classic withdrawal behavior.

For a long time they hadn't picked up on that and/or attributed it to other co-medications. For one, many who took it either never did get back off, and, it was an off-label use for pain to begin with. Then they began to notice that pattern, did some data sampling, and yep, that's a real thing.

I had briefly weaned off entirely for a good 6 months or so, but, that was short lived. This time around I've been back on since fall of '18.

Curious part about it all to me is they tell you you need to 'wean off for health reasons' when instead they could just say 'you need to taper because of physical dependency' <shrug>

 

[CopperNick]

Ah, okay, some enlightenment here...... GABA, FLEXIRIL, AND NEURONTIN? Generally suspecting here that they are all some kind of high grade pain pills, all of which have some serious side effects. Have not heard of them up here and digging out the house book of pills, potions, and medications might not be advantageous because a lot of what you have available to you is stonewalled up here by the FDA who are absolute snails when it comes to certifying medications for general consumption. If they had had their way, all the vaccines for Covid would still be held up in the testing and study stage and they still periodically whine and snivel about releasing them too soon and not understanding all the potential complications that might just maybe occur sometime in the next millenium or two. At my age the only complicaton that worries me is their lack of initiative and speed. I dunno, maybe the last bunch of subsidies were light in the dollar?

Think the avoidance of the term "physical dependency" is a ploy driven by the legal department to side step any possibility that, heaven forbid, using the stuff turns you into an addict. That their recommendation played a major role in generating that type of consequence is the stuff or lawsuits and congressional committee hearings. You can almost hear the whimpering of the lawyers and the accountants as they experience the nightmares of "Gasp" having to admit culpability and pay out money!!!!!




Nick

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

I'm classy..

 

[ck80]

Ah, okay, some enlightenment here...... GABA, FLEXIRIL, AND NEURONTIN?

Aye.

Gaba and neurotin are the same thing, generic and brand names, respectively

The actual list in my case would be gaba, flexeril, tizanidine, methocarbamol, carsioprodol, percocet/acetaminophen, and ibuprofen. Taken 4x daily.

Needless to say, I cannot donate blood.

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

Aye.

Gaba and neurotin are the same thing, generic and brand names, respectively

The actual list in my case would be gaba, flexeril, tizanidine, methocarbamol, carsioprodol, percocet/acetaminophen, and ibuprofen. Taken 4x daily.

Needless to say, I cannot donate blood.

How much blood do you still have in your body with all that? Same treatment plan as Mick Jagger & Keith Richards?

 

[ck80]

How much blood do you still have in your body with all that? Same treatment plan as Mick Jagger & Keith Richards?

Not sure.

I also get semi-monthly spinal epidurals that alternate with semi-monthly radio-frequency ablations...and the various stuff they inject you with connected to those.

Now, if I only had jagger's money....

 

[Supercharged111]

Aye.

Gaba and neurotin are the same thing, generic and brand names, respectively

The actual list in my case would be gaba, flexeril, tizanidine, methocarbamol, carsioprodol, percocet/acetaminophen, and ibuprofen. Taken 4x daily.

Needless to say, I cannot donate blood.

4 different muscle relaxers 4x/day? Why not just more of one?

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

4 different muscle relaxers 4x/day? Why not just more of one?

Same thing I'm thinking..

 

[ck80]

4 different muscle relaxers 4x/day? Why not just more of one?

Same thing I'm thinking..

I actually had that conversation with doc. Answer I got was they work slightly differently from each other, and some give benefits working together you don't get from one alone.

One pharmacist raised the same question when the soma was added about a year ago too.

From what I was explained asking the MD after, in addition to lessening some of the specific side effects that come with higher does of just one or two, there were additional treatment bonuses associated with some drugs.

For example, the soma helps more with the joints in addition to just muscles. The tizanidine can also to some degree somewhat lower blood pressure. I'm nominally a low side of normal BP. When my pain gets bad I hit hypertension stage 1 to borderline 2.

So, I guess he kinda knew what he was doing.?.?.? I get the effect of high dose muscle relaxant, but minimize the negatives while getting a small batch of benefits.

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

Hopefully things can go the best they can with that. Kidneys and liver getting a workout.