Le sheet.

[luna_manar]

I am terrified that I have a serious problem.

I think I may be addicted to pregabalin.

I don't know what to do about it. Without it, I am in the most terrible, pervasive pain. But it used to be that I could go without it for a week, or even two, and not suffer any ill effects other than the pain.

But I ran out of it last week, and a couple days afterward, I was overcome with the most awful, incapacitating depression I have had in quite some time. As soon as I got my prescription filled and took one, the depression vanished.

I honestly don't know what to do. I didn't notice this happening, mainly because pregabalin doesn't make you "high" at all. It just gets rid of the stupid overactive nerve-pain that goes on constantly and for no reason. This medicine has been a lifesaver that has allowed me to function normally without making me intoxicated, while I try desperately to identify the cause of my fibro; the better to fix it, so I don't need the pregabalin. But if I become addicted to it, what happens when I don't need it, anymore? I'm afraid I'll be dependent on it, by then, and will go through withdrawal for months or even years--and if hat withdrawal means suffering the kind of depression I just lived through, the prospect frightens me very much.

Blarg. I don't know what to do.

Comments

Here via a random content search, hope that's okay

[rydra_wong]

I'm also on pregabalin (for the after-effects of a freak reaction to another med), and also hoping to get off it at some point, so dealing with the same worries.

Especially as a previous attempt at tapering seemed to indicate that I'm also going to have a tough time with the withdrawal.

Word on the internet seems to be that some people have no trouble getting off it, but others have some degree of withdrawal syndrome, from mild to severe (with depression and anxiety being known symptoms).

However, in most cases, it seems like the withdrawal can be managed by doing a slow taper, as slow as you need it to be to make the symptoms tolerable, if not comfortable. Or so I am told.

By the way, fucking_meds is a fantastic community for letting off steam about these things.

Re: Here via a random content search, hope that's okay

[luna_manar]

That is comforting to know (and no problem with finding me through a search; I don't have many contacts here, as is). I will check out that community.

I'll talk to my doc the next time I see her. I'm probably overreacting, it's just that I was so useless that week I was off it, and I felt so horrible about life, the universe and everything in it, I wouldn't care to be repeating it.

Re: Here via a random content search, hope that's okay

[rydra_wong]

I don't think you're over-reacting at all; some of us apparently do get a nasty withdrawal syndrome, and it is a horrible prospect to have to think that even if you get the original problem dealt with, you then have to deal with weaning yourself off this drug.

But how fast or slowly you taper it does make a huge difference; you got the cold turkey version, which hopefully you won't ever have to repeat.