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EXACTLY... I was on the Neurontin/Ultram combination for two years.  I have Trigeminal Neuralgia.  Let's see... overwhelming sleepiness, couldn't even keep my eyes open,... was physically sick if I tried to move too quickly (meaning more than a crawl)... could not even walk further than about 10 feet after a while on the meds... I cannot even describe the loss of strength I experienced... I was a gymnast and used to being stronger than most women, but I became so weak I could not even pour my own milk... shaking hands you say?... could not stop my whole body from convulsing; and, even today, two years after going off the meds, my hands still shake.  What else?  Hmm... horrible dizzyness, VERY low blood pressure, seizures, and major depression.  I attributed the depression to the fact that I was sick until I stopped taking the meds and realized that I my normally positive outlook was returning slowly.
As far as the accusations about Neurontin being linked to Suicide... that is not difficult for me to believe.  Before I went on the drug, I had a very definite opinion about the value of the life God had given me and the tragedy it was that people who took their own did not see the possibilities of the future.  Even having that as my core belief, I have to confess that after I had been on the drug for two years, my mother had to pick me up off the floor (both of us crying) because I had told her that I did not think I could face another day.  The only reason I am still here is because of the strength of my core beliefs and my faith in God.  I attributed my deep depression to the overwhelming difficulty that accompanies the pain of Trigeminal Neuralgia (and every other dibilitating illness... loneliness, financial distress, loss of prior goals, dreams, and lifestyle etc...)

Anyway, I deal with my disorder now without medication... and, Thank God, it has become much more bearable over time.  I am young for a Trigeminal patient, and at some point I realized the drugs were killing me and making my life worthless.   My advice to you is to take as little of whatever they (meaning Dr.s) give you as possible and seek out every other mean of alternative medicing available to you.  I have found that a medical massage once or twice a week makes a HUGE difference in the quality of my life, so when I was able to start working again, I was working solely to pay for that! :-) Now, I am doing very well... healthy enough to handle, successful in my challenging business, and strong.

One more warning about those meds... they take a LONG time to get out of your blood.  It took me over a year after I stopped taking them to not feel like I was going to faint all of the time.  The dizzyness and the hand-shaking still persist to this day.  And just to give you some vitals... While I was on those meds, my resting heart-rate (first thing in the morning) fell to 37 beats per minute (off from the 55 before the meds) and has only come up to 42 since then.  My lowest documented blood pressure was 84 over 47... rediculous!  A forced glass of red wine every night helped bring that up, but I will admit that I have no idea what the reading is now.

Okay, I wish you all the best.  I wouldn't wish these symptoms on my worste enemy!

Hi stefanijall. Great post   for all. One year-- that explains alot right there. I especially like your memory loss one, because that is what I still have symptoms there. But my memory loss will come back 1 o2 days later at the wiederst times, whether in a dream or driving in my car. I have faith your college education won't be lost. Thanks for the two great posts. Encouragement for all!   8)  Aloha Skooze

I was prescribed Neurotin for several months as a pain med. I experenced memory loss, weight gain, and slurred speach to name a few.  About a month ago, I had my first seizure. Now I am terrified of what this may do to my future.  I've never had any head injuries or neurological problems.  I was prescribed this med for pain because of an injury to my shoulder, I had no idea it was actually anti-seizure medications.  Could this in any way have lead to me actually having a seizure?  And now that I've had a seizure, does this mean I'll have to stay on meds for the rest of my life?  Please help!!!

I'm so lost is there anybody out there ??
I'll give it a little while longer, but not holding a lot of hope just another dead end.

I was prescribed Neurontin (Gabapentin) 300 mg. twice a day. My Dr. has prescribed it for Headaches. I have had them all my life. I started taking various different meds at an early age to try to eliminate headaches. I have been to many Dr's. all of them focusing around "migraines." Neurontin is just another med. used for headaches, (migraines in particular). MY pain ALWAYS starts in my neck, as I have several vertebra that are pinched and cause constant pain. Headaches are a daily issue. I have tried EVERY alternate form of pain therapy ( chiropractic, message, acupuncture, potassium, many different herbals, Prolo therapy, etc...) nothing works. Neurontin, makes me dizzy, tired, and when I get up in the night to use the bathroom, I see things, shadows that move.  Has anybody experienced that? I am not going to take this anymore. I'm 48 and want my 17 year old body back!!!!!!   

[quote]I had 2 cervical fusions, one in 1996, the other in 2001. A plate was installed in the latter. C3, C4, C5, C6 and C7 are all fused. Each fusion was prompted by ruptured discs and both incidents caused damage to my spinal cord as bone spurs cut into it. I fell several times after the last fusion which caused spinal cord edema and caused more damage. Afterwards I was left with a multitude of symptoms including severe lower back pain, a feeling that my body cavity was pressurizing as I walked, and a feeling that the underside of my arms had all the skin scraped off from my wrists to my elbows. My shirt sleeves touching my arms was maddening as was water from a shower spraying on them and even air from the dash vents of my vehicle blowing on them was painful. I was in so much pain that even sleep was impossible until exhaustion would set in and I'd nod off. (I had a complete spinal MRI done about a year and a half after the last surgery to ensure nothing else was amiss. Nothing was found.) I was started on Oxycontin for the pain and it really helped. My mobility returned without walking around feeling stoned. I had my dose gradually raised until I was at a state where I still hurt a bit, but I could do all the necessary things to live a somewhat normal life. Current dose is 60 mg 3 times a day. However, the Oxy did absolutely nothing for the feeling in my arms. That provided my introduction to Neurontin. I was originally taking  it 4 times a day; 300 mg 3 times and 600 mg at bedtime. It helped the burning. I still felt it, but it had lowered in intensity to that of a bad sunburn. After a couple months on it I started having trouble with throwing up a little bit in my sleep and an awful medicinal taste would be left in my mouth that brushing and gargling wouldn't take out. I reduced my Neurontin dosage to 300 mg three times a day and still had the same pain relief as I had on the higher dose. The puking up ceased. When I saw my neurologist at the next quarterly office visit I told him what I had done, and why. He was OK with it. Meanwhile I had started having severe leg cramps in my calves. It was both Charley Horses with knotted muscles and unconsciously bending my feet down as far as they would go and continuing to force them down.  When I would get up in the morning I could hardly walk my calves would be so sore. I would walk like I had swim flippers on. The cramping spread to my forearms and fingers and would be so excrutiatingly painful I would actually start crying out in pain. They would come at random in that I didn't have to be doing anything to trigger them. Sometimes just trying to hold a pen and write would make my fingers go into painful spasms. These would sometimes go on for hours. When I walk my feet curl as I lift them so I would step down on the outer edge causing me to twist my ankle and fall, or just fall. My knees occasionally buckle without warning sending me down. My balance was easily upset and trying to recover it was an exercise in slapstick comedy as I would pitch this way and that, each movement an overcorrection for the last overcorrection until I'd fall. My knees hurt so bad I hate having to kneel down. Picking up something off the floor requires a movement in which I aim at the object, align my arm down my side, then I squat as rapidly as possible, try to grab the item and try to utilize the momentum of the downward motion to create a bounce to help stand me back up again.  All my doctors have blown these things off and offered no recommendations to help with them.  Recently I saw one of my neurologist's partners while he, my regular doctor, was out on medical leave. This guy never asked me a damn thing about my condition or my lifestyle, my job, or anything. He treated me like I was a criminal for taking Oxycontin and said I wasn't taking enough Neurontin and "we" could go as high as 5000 mg a day! He changed my dosage to 2400 mg a day from 900 mg. I've been on the higher dosage for about 10 days as of this writing. I spent the first 3 days so tired I had to hide out at work and sleep because I couldn't stay awake. I couldn't carry on a conversation without forgetting what was being talked about in mid sentence. I couldn't do simple arithmetic in my head. Since then the fatigue has subsided, but some days it comes back. I have no energy and just want to lay around. My stomach has been upset, the cramps are just as bad. I feel weird all the time in a way I can't explain other than I just don't feel right. I sleep all night and wake up feeling more tired than when I went to bed.  I have bad dreams every night. I have started having cramps in my rib cage. Worst of all, this insidious feeling of hopelessness is creeping into my conciousness. I find myself wanting to give up because this whole thing with my health feels so pointless. I KNOW that's not me, but I am losing my conviction that I'm stronger than that. I'm scared because this new reality is spreading and this doctor won't listen. I'm only half-way to what he said he wanted to go to with the dosage he put me on. His concern seems to be solely getting me off the Oxycontin and nothing else matters. Not my quality of life, not my ability to continue to provide for myself as I have done my entire life. I told him I didn't give a damn what medicine I took- all I want is relief so I can live as normal a life as I could. I am 51 and probably don't have a lot of years left anyway. I sure would like to live them normally. But, I don't know what direction to take. All ends seem to lead to a bad place.[/quote]

I need not post with my small issues with headaches. You and others on this posting site are the real soldiers. I just have bad headaches. I can still do everything, Ride motorcycles, karate, dirt bikes, etc...I can even do the splits. Some of my headaches are painfull enough to make me puke, but I now consider myself very lucky. My hat goes off to all of you. Drs. do want to prescribe lots of drugs to mask the problem insead of finding out alternate ways to efliminate to root.
GOOD LUCK ALL AND KEEP YOUR CHIN UP.

i am sick of medicine. i am a forty-nine year old woman that is dealing with fybromylgia for the last fourteen years along with arthritis,two different kinds and dealing with diabetes. i also have high cholesterol. i have tryed all the pain meds. and nothing seems to work. i also took neurontin my dr. started me out taking one three times a day until i got up to twelvehundred mg a day, i was walking into walls crying all the time didn't care if i lived or died. iwas always tiried but couldn't sleep my family didn't understand they just kept saying maybe it's the medication your taking all i know is that i hurt i would have tryed almost anything to stop the pain. sometimes i would set up at nite and just cry and think that i didn't want to live anymore. i stayed on neurontin for about fourteen months and i would never go back on it again, you don't know how bad it was for you until you get off it and you can start to think again. i still have alot of pain everyday and take other pain meds that don't work very good either, there is days i can hardly move and it makes it hard to keep going ahead. as if i didn't have enough problems my dr. put me on a drug that just about killed me. he said that my cholesterol was to high so he put me on crestor 10mg. at bed time, i only took it for six nites after the forth nite and the next morning i went to get out of bed a fell into my bedroom wall due to severe cramps in both of calf. i though i had just bruised my shoulder but the pain never went away it only got worse and my arm keeps getting stiffer so my dr. finally order a x-ray and a mri. just to find out that when i fell i tore my muscle and tendon up to the shoulder. i now have to go get hooked back togather i only hope they can make it right. to every one out there please research the drug crestor if your dr wants to put you on it, my personal though is i wouldn't and will never take any drug to lower my cholesterol  i also had trouble with lipitor and tricore that caused severe pain in the legs and all three drugs left my legs and arms week and in alot of pain. crestor caused severe cramping and after only six days of taking it.
good luck and god bless
rose
tsvjmv7784

Thank you all for your stories.  I have recently had my peripheral nerves and right arm tendons damaged due to Levaquin and, after meeting with the neurologist yesterday, he prescribed Neurontin for the nerve pain.  Thank goodness I had the sense to do research before filling the prescription.  I find it appalling and just plain hard to believe that this dr. prescribed Neurontin as a first choice of action.  I was quite clear with him that I tend to be the patient that will manifest with the "severe reactions" listed on the data sheets.  He assured me that this is a very safe drug that is well tolerated.  Well this was EXACTLY what I was told about Levaquin and now I can no longer hold a coffee cup after only 2 doses of that drug.  I keep thinking about all the folks that aren't aware of their options and don't have access to or knowledge of the internet's availability of info.  Too many lives are being damaged by the quick and easy dispensing of drugs that are too little understood.  Good luck to you all and best wishes for continued healing.

I would suggest you go to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed and post key words relating to your problem.  Abstracts to journal articles therein may help you.  Good luck.

Harold Boxenbaum, Ph.D.
www.arishel.com

Hi!! I take Neurontin 2400 mg /day for the symptoms of RLS ! Anyway this med was supposed to help with the symptoms and so far it has not!! I am like a drunk walking around the house with RLS!! I also awaken every 1-2 hours when I am able to sleep! I`m going off this med ASAP!! But since I have tried all of the others including Dostinex and now I have cardiac valvular disease from that med!! There really is very little choice in the available meds left for me to try! My next step is a narcotic! And I do really hate to take that but I also am very desperate for a good nite`s sleep too!! Anyone have any other suggestions that they might share!! 
Diane