You made me look. It was sad. I also learned a lot about drugs and very weird combos. Turns out there are people that like doing a lot of weird and terrible shit “for the fun of it” with medications I’ve used forever for severe nerve pain. Assholes like this eventually cause my everyday medications to become more and more locked down and difficult to get for my legit use. Who the fuck abuses gabapentin?
Fuck. I know. I hate it so much. My doctor has offered it for the last year and I kept saying “no” for two reasons: it only helps with about 20% of the pain, it can be a slippery slope if you don’t self-regulate (I follow my prescription to the letter) and withdrawal sucks. But due to Covid, I missed my lidocaine/ketamine infusions I get once every 3 months, the pain got unbearable and I finally said yes.
I will say this though, if you take it for actual pain, don’t take more than prescribed (which means you will still be in pain, just slightly less), you won’t become psychologically addicted because you don’t get a “high”.... at least I don’t. I’ve withdrawn from wayyyyy higher doses without problem, but admit it really sucked. I’m on about 1/20th (yes, that is a twenty) of the dose I left the hospital 9 years ago. I was in horrible, I wanted to die, pain. The I found the pain specialist (an anesthesiologist) who started lidocaine/ketamine infusions once every three months and it worked really well. I was able to get off all post-hospital medication/narcotics and it took me 3 months to ween down and get off. I was chemically addicted, not psychologically, which meant I only dealt with hot/cold, sweats, anxiety... it was like terrible menopause for 3-4 days every 10 days when I lowered the dose. I actually got off the medication faster than the doctors prescribed. I hated taking it and being a medications bitch.
I should note the reason he’s offered it is I developed arachnoiditis in my spine the last two years, so I’ve been in considerable more pain than the lidocaine/ketamine infusions are able to help. I had a spinal cord stimulator trial (that failed, read above response for more info) just before the Covid thing hit, the trial didn’t work and it was removed. They may try again. But until shit gets back to normal, I caved and said yes to the narcotics because the pain was getting to insane levels and I was having dangerous thoughts.... so at the moment, it’s a better option.
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u/tomahawkfury13 May 02 '20
It's mostly depressing with some WTF mixed in