Gabapentin withdrawal and palpitations

been on neurontin 15 months and weaning off of it now. was put on it for hot flashes, and nerve pain. but now my cardsiologist says it can be causing my bp and heart rate issues. so im doing a slow weaning process. anxiety is a bit worse and insomnia as well. but its all normal and will pass eventually. good luck to you

i noticed the tingling below my ear too and at the same time i tried to fall asleep i felt like i couldnt breat too

Hi Candice. I have been on gab for about 18 months. I have read all the complications you can have from quickly weaning off this drug. I was on 1600 mgs per day. Now Im down to 600mgs. Im weaning 100 mgs  every two weeks. Thats the safeat way to wean. Very low and slow. I t does help my hot flashes and thats whi i originally started on this drug. Then I got costrochondritis and kept upping as per my dr for pain. It really helped alot. But now Im having heart rate issues and my cardiologist wants me eventually off this drug. I hope you are ok now. Sounds like you went thru hell!!!!  So sorry

Grace and Candice, IMHO that's an agressive schedule to decrease the drug. I was diagnosed with shingles back in November, and eventually increased to 2400 mg/day. I've SLOWLY been improving but I have PHN. I'm starting to decrease the Gab but 3 months ago, even dropping 100 mg/day caused some nasty symptoms. This time I tried again and I didn't have many of those problems. However, I have started palpitations, found this via a Google search. I am active on the PHN/Shingles section of this website, but hadn't gotten many responses to my thread regarding gab withdrawal. I guess (LOL) this is helpful, but just what I thought I'd avoid any side-effects, now I know it's still that dear drug!.. Grace, that "costochondritis" may have been shingles. You don't need a rash to have shingles. My chest and back pain are caused by the virus, and I barely had any rash at all. Take care all.

Thanks for reply. I have weaned 100 mgs every three weeks . And I actually have stayed at 700 mgs for now because of chest pain. I  agree my dr wanted me to wean too quickly at first.  I know several people who have had shingles and had that horrible rash. I thought that was the tell tale sign of it. My Dr is referring me to diff specialists to fugure out what it is. Its a burning and kinda constant. My soft icepacks help to numb it. I use them all day a nd night. I cant take motrin so i take XS tylenol everyday every 6 to 7 hours. Helps a bit too. Im just praying it goes away as mysteriously as it came. I do end up in the er quite a bit but am very grateful chest pain isnt heart related Thank God!!!!  are you still having palpitations and pain???   Ive had chest pain for quite a while now. I know it could be much worse and more serious. Im grateful its not. hope you are well!!!!!

Grace, are you aware that you do NOT need to have a rash to have shingles? I joined this Patient Forum group when I was diagnosed with shingles, I had almost no rash on my back (a couple of tiny bumps) and then two weeks later four tiny bumps on my lower breast. That was it. The key to my diagnosis was the pain and how it followed the nerve path from the back to the front.

I AM NOT A DOCTOR NOR A NURSE, I ONLY WORKED AS A MEDICAL SECRETARY! However, please consider going over to the shingles forums and see if what you hear there matches with your symptoms. It can be hard to diagnose or extremely easy. My doctor agreed that people can get all kind of medical work-ups before doctors realize it's shingles. I diagnosed my husband (twice) and my father. Dad had more of the typical rash, my husband only the pain and a small area that looked a bit like prickly heat rash. Try and think back to when you first had the pain, did you also feel ill? Did you have a headache, feel lousy, fatigue, does the pain follow a specific nerve line (like a ring around your body)? But this sneaky thing can also cause pain in a much larger area, like 1/4 of my back or my front. I personally have about 8 different kinds of pain, isn't that neato?? Is the pain made worse by specifici movements such as leaning, bending, twisting, lifting? Is the area sensitive to movement (clothing rubbing)? Does it itch (not all shingles rashes itch--mine never did).

My palipitations from the Gab only occurred a few times over two days, I haven't had any more, thanks for asking.

Can you please tell me about the spinal operation you had to have?!  I've ended up in ICU 5x with pnuemonia. Yet this last time was by far the worst. I ended up with bacterial menegitis. This started as I was tapering off gabapentin. I've just been so sick these last 5 years that I can't think anymore. Trying to. Get off this medicine. I think it's going to kill me!  Take care! Sherri

my doctor almost killed me by having me stop gabapentin and when i did like he said it caused me to go three weeks with no sleep luckily an emergency room doctor saved my life by having me use ativan to get off gabapentin you can use ativan to taper off of gabapentin if you need to get off gabapentin but the gabapentin does no doubt make it to were you cant think anymore

Sorry to hear that, no you can't just stop any medicine like that and doctors know that. They have to wean you off it and give you something replaced it.  I'm trying to weaned off of it I use to take 3 tablets a day 300 milgram. I'm taken as needed down to one tablet every other day not every day just as needed. Hopefully I will eventually stop it. Thanks wish you the best. 

i stopped it over a year ago but if your looking for a way to stop it more quickly than spending half a year to get off it the ativan can help you get off gabapentin within one month thats how i did it and thats how my emergency room doctor told me to do it

That's where I'm at. My Doctor is prescribing a low dose of Klonopin and doesn't believe Me when I say the gabapentin is killing Me. I was working and functioning when I first began seeing him 2 1/2 years ago. He took me off my current pain med changed it to Opana and upper the mg of gabapentin.  I immediately stopped functioning and screaming about pain. So he upped gabapentin again. If I woke up all I did was take medication then cried about pain and spelled when I could. Then I was up and down all the time. Couldn't walk or think. No memory. All his time I've been doing this. All kinds of infections. Hospital stays. Near death with pnuemonia the last is bacterial menegitis when a pain pump was placed in at his advice to control pain.  My adrenal glands don't function but at 2 % and have been replaced by steroids. I can no longer balance electrolytes. So many hospital stays from low sodium or high potatoes and he just rings his hands at my edema. I done

 With Him. But can't think enough how to help myself. Sherri

Sorry this medication is so dangerous and I don't make sense. Along with the mental and physical I'm really in a bad place. Gabapentin was suppose to be a safe med. now I find out about the addictive side of it. I would walk to make sure I had it. I would NOT walk for an opiate. It is a horrible med to run out of and never just stop taking it. You will end up in ER and if like Me out of control making no sense in a I cU. I also had to give My 20 year old Daughter medical say for Me. In just 2 years She makes all medical and controls Our finances as I'm no longer capable. If You want to start, stay or go up on this med make sure You have somebody ready to quickly step in to take care of you!! COMPLETELY!!!!! I don't know how long it will take but I'm getting off this med so I can think again and regain some pelvic and low back pain!  It needs to be controlled and the pain from My lower abdomen to pelvic pain is like someone is torturing Me!  Yet My Doctor thinks I just want more pain meds. I don't, I want to function!  Does anyone else have problems with Their Doctor thinking Gabapentin is a wonder drug and that's all you should need. I want him to take it!! Sherri

I'm still successfully slowly tapering off my gab, I drop 100 mg per month. I'm so sorry you and Kirk are in such a spiral. Some of us have wondered if there's a rebound effect with Gab, as in the pain can worsen before it gets better. I'm on it for PHN, Post Herpetic Neuralgia, meaning I had shingles and now the nerves in my back/chest area (near the bra-band) are damaged. As I drop, the first two weeks, I'm OK, the third I have more memory issues, depression and fatigue along with odd, brief symptoms and often one day of increased pain. Then bam, I feel better, my mind is clearer and I've got a good stretch until I drop again. However, I've been doing this for months, and so far, each month has fewer negative side effects. I'm at 1600 mgs now, and plan to continue on this. I appreciate someone's suggestion for Ativan, I'll pass.

Sherri, there's a different thread in the PHN forum that may help. It's about dealing with PHN and depression, but there are some very good suggestions and support for dealing with chronic pain. Read some of the comments and see if they can help.  Do they know why you are having the pelvic/abdominal pain? I wonder if you need to see some other doctors, as there are so many things that can cause it. And why were you put on Gab, did they think it was nerve pain?

sherri if your using gabapentin for pain and its helping you then you have to follow the doctors orders but if the pain is gone now then its up to you if you want to get off the gabapentin the quickest way to get off gabapentin if your going through withdrawals is to use ativan other wise you would have to taper off gabapentin by going down by 100mg gabapentin every ten days for a very long time i had so much trouble thinking to when i went through gabapentin withdrawals and i had to think very hard during that time to figure out how to use ativan to get off of gabapentin but i eventually figured out how to do that and it worked worked very good but at the time my grandmother was dieing and i had to take care of her while she was dieing and i had a lot of nurses stoping by at that time that i could ask about how to use ativan to taper off gabapentin so i figured it out by talking to 4 nurses and five doctors and with all 9 healthcare providers advice i figured out how to use ativan to get off gabapentin quickly and your saying you dont know what to do i get that but you have to think real hard because its your situation and everybodys situation is different so you have to figure it out and try hard just like everybody else thats goes through this now if you come to the conclusion that you want off gabapentin quickly i will offer to help you figure that out but if you taper slowly then do it by going down by 100mg gabapentin every 10 days. and if you still have pain then you might need to stay on gabapentin you have to figure this all out but if you need off gabapentin quickly i can help i have a video i made to show you how i did it explaining how the emergency room doctor told me to do it on how to use ativan to get off of gabapentin it takes one month and it worked perfect

I would advise caution in changing medications or reducing medication without working with your doctor and pharmacist. We all have suggestions and opinions on what worked for us, but everyone is different. Personally I couldn't possibly go down that quickly and I would not try and replace one drug for another.

this is what the emergency room doctor told me to do because he diagnosed me with gabapentin withdrawals so yes this was working with an emergency room doctor i already know everyone is different what you do personally is up to you but the ativan worked great!!! and it helps you reduce the gabapentin dosage easy and quickly

My problem is my Doctor won't prescribe Ativan. I have a script for .50 Klonopin twice a day but that's all He will do. He doesn't believe in benzos and will only do Klonopin because of the severity of pain and need to relax the muscles. Ativan works great for that too. My pain completely vanishes. I'm just now recovering from bacterial menegitis. I have chronic infections that are killing Me caused as a side effect of gabapentin. It's why I desperately need off gabapentin. I can't take another upper respiratory infection where I stop breathing!  It's been too close of calls this year and the menegitis was 3 weeks mostly in ICU. Thanks! Sherri

Also I've heard from a lot of sources that Ativan was the best way to withdraw off gabapentin. I'm having trouble even keeping my electrolytes balanced so quickly as possible is the way I need to go!  It's like my body just went allergic to the med! Thank you

well without ativan then the fastest way is to go down by 100mg gabapentin every 10 days tell your off gabapentin no problem and good luck