Gabapentin Withdrawal Horror

I am just past 8 weeks now after quitting Gab cold turkey, unaware of the horrible symptoms that I have experienced and worse yet what some of you on here have experienced.  Worst of all, I quit one day before knee surgery.  Not only did I go through a DVT, PE and double Pneumonia, and a 5 day Hospital stay, I was also suffering withdraws from Gab and didnt even realize it.

It was only after about 2 weeks of being home and having horrible dizzy spells and sick to my stomach constantly, and body pain did I realize there was something besides the bloodclots and surgery causing it.  My doctor has had me on an opiod, and I still take klonopin for nerves and not sleeping, so I think that has covered over the withdraw symptoms.  Today, if I don't take the pain killer, I will still get alot of dizziness and joint pain, but the stomach sickness is gone.  I must shortly return to work, and I know the doc won't keep me on the opiods.  Not really wanting to stay on them anyway.  But I'm afraid once I get off them, the withdraw symptoms will return.  I picked up my last perscription of gab and its in the medicine drawer I guess as a just in case I cant deal with going back to work and having the withdraws.  But honestly, I don't really want to take it again.  Especially after going through what I've went through.  I had withdraw from Zoloft for a couple or three weeks, but this is unbelievable.  Hang in there everybody.

I quit Gabapentin cold-turkey on some very bad advice from my doctor back in February. It's now November. My dose was very low and I only took it for a few weeks - but I was on Cymbalta for a few months prior, so take this with a grain of salt, please. Remember that all your neurotransmitter chemistry is related, so even if you weren't on Cymbalta, you can take hope from this post.

I also deal with severe anxiety issues, but I had never had symptoms like this before.

The first few days off were awful, but nothing could prepare me for what I now know is called "antidepressant discontinuation syndrome".

I've had severe cognitive impairment - memory problems, processing problems, "brain zaps" so bad I couldn't walk. They would come and go every few hours, sometimes leaving me functional and sometimes impairing me so badly I couldn't form sentences. I wondered dimly if I might have had a stroke, or had MS or Lupus, perhaps. I had so many tests done I can barely remember them all (but they all came back clean!).

The symptoms were worse when I was near sleep - mornings and evenings. Many nights I legitimately couldn't tell dreams from reality. My childhood sleep paralysis came back, and I woke screaming four or five times a night some nights.

This week, as if by magic, something changed: I woke up and was able to put sentences together in my head again. It just /worked/. The zaps and headaches are still around but my periods of lucidity are longer between them now, and truth be told I've been cognizant and clear-headed (with a few stumbles) for about three days straight now. That hasn't happened to me since before I started this rotten drug.

I wanted to come back here and give you some hope - you who is there right now reading this forum as you endure this unbelievable nightmare, your thoughts scattered and broken and your brain malfunctioning:

You will get better.

This is not permanent. This is not forever.

Your symptoms will come and go - and many times they will likely be worse than you remember them ever being - but they will get a little better each time. Each flareup or backslide leaves you just a little bit more healed. There are no victory stories on the internet about recovering from this medicine-induced misery because nobody wants to relive these symptoms once they are gone, but think about it: if nobody got better, there's be stories about that!

Hang in there. You will recover. It may take a year. It may take longer.

But...you are healing. Be patient. There is an end to this madness. You will have your mind back.