how do i ween off 75mg lyrica please

Hi I'm just wondering I've been on 25mg of pregabalin for Six months and have had severe diarrhoea and it's not getting better, just wanted to know how to come off them.and if you have suffered with this.

I have been reading this as I too am about to begin a slow tapering off Pregabalin. However I have to share my alternate experience...

I have been off work for 8 months following a major breakdown, with severe GAD and panic attacks, shaking, aggression, thoughts of self harm. At my worst I couldn't leave my house. I must say these types of feeling were certainly not the real me, but indicate how unwell I came after a series of life events that took me from bad to worse. 

I am now well on the mend and can see improvement on a week by week basis. Last weekend a major milestone as I actually went away on holiday, something I couldn't even comprehend as possible three months ago. I credit my recovery with several things:

1. Pregabalin - 100mg twice day. This stabalised me. Stopped the Panic attacks, brought my GAD under control (without removing it completely, but enough to take me from a 9 or 10 out of 10 on the anxiety scale to about a 5 out of 10. I tapered up to this dose, and had a lot of the zombie type side effects mentioned here. They went on for several weeks, but I decided it was a fair trade for reduced anxiety. I also put on about 5kgs in weight.

2. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I really engaged in this. It is really essential. Medicine is a crutch, but not a cure. The only cure comes from understand the interlinking impact of thoughts, behaviours and feelings, and changing what you can. Really hard, but dedicate yourself to this for half an hour each day, and you will see gradual results. Its slow, its hard, but it works.

3. Sertraline, 75mg once per day in the morning. After getting my anxiety under control, my depression emerged. This happened only after a couple of months of stabilising on the Pregabalin. Sertraline was like turning on a light bulb in my brain. It just felt like everything woke up, and my anxiety went down further, say from a 5/10 to a 3/10, on average. This was surprising for me since I have never responded well to SSRIs when tried in the past.

4. Meditation. I've been using an app, but I also do a very deep muscle based relaxation each day. This feels more relaxing than sleep and I feel like my body is repairing itself, great feeling. I will add I did this when I was very ill before getting pregabalin for 90 days and it did not help - it may have actually made it worse. I think one needs to be in a certain level of wellness to be able to do mindfullness properly without descending into a deep overanalysis and focus on how you always feel bad... I've picked it up again and done the last 30 days in a row - working much better now.

5. Group therapy. I was extremely fortunate my health insurance was able to send me to a specialist mental health clinic as a day patient where I engaged in various group support therapies. Most valuable from this was a properly moderated in person group support session where people suffering the same issues discussed them openly. Proper moderation is key in my opinion. I also attended groups on anxiety, depression, OCD, Schema, Transactional Analysis, Assertiveness, and Anger Management. Of all of these, probably most helpful in the short term for me was assertiveness and transactional analysis. I would add that most participants in these groups were normal people ranging from professionals to students. All the people I spoke to agreed this stuff should be taught in schools - for me and some others I guess they just lacked certain skills which eventually lead to them getting beaten down. I would really highlight how important assertiveness is in this domain. I would also recommend the book "Curse of the Strong" for any paitient or family members.

Finally, I would say, I am obviously sharing my experience based on my own experience, and that everyone is different and has a range of different backgrounds, reasons for illness, and will react differently to different medicines. What I've said might not be right for you, but I hope the shared experience provides you some additional insight. I was probably lucky to have a good consultant and only reacted badly to one medicine (venlafaxine), before hitting the right ones for me. I was also lucky living so close to a well known mental health facility.

I will add one final thing. I took Lorazepam daily for 2 months before weaning off it. This was prescribed to me in another country, and my consultant was seriously shocked I was prescribed this medicine. Having had success with pregabalin, I would only ever take Lorazepam again in an extreme emergency or crisis situation, and I will repeat that the right dose of pregabalin prevented panic attacks for me. My consultant said in the UK "we are trying to move away from benzos and undo all the past mistakes in that area."

Hopefully my rather longwinded message is helpful for those taking Pregabalin for anxiety (I know it has other uses). Even if doesn't work for you, I believe there are other alternatives, and certainly many other non-medical approaches to support the benefits of medication as well.

Best wishes,

Michael  

Dear Michael,

Firstly thank you so much for your post. 

I have been researching on trying to withdraw from Pregabalin for some time for a friend. 

He too has dibilitating side effects. He has incorporated much the same methods as yourself including meditation, yoga, magnesium baths etc etc.

 He was originally prescribed the drug for fibromyalgia .

 My reason for writing is to ask you for more details on the deep muscle relaxation that you do. I feel like this could really help him.

 BTW, how are you eight months on?

 Many thanks in anticipation,

Alison

Hi8 months on, how are you now. Started oral pregablin, all my muscles ache terrible, did you have this symptoms, did it work for you regards Barbara x

Hello Alison would you like to have some friend in the same boat

As yourself, my muscles and joints are killing me, I'm on pregablin but oral as l cannot swallow capsules. Love Barbara x

Hi Grey0417, ( or anyone else who wishes to respond)

I am fairly new to joining in on these forums and have trigeminal neuralgia and have been given Lyrica, is this the type of prescribed medication I should be taking for this? I was on cabapentin for years, but it lost its magic and the pain started coming back through. If you cannot respond I understand,   thanks in advance.

WOW! I am so sorry for affliction, TN is a very pernicious nuerological disease and very painful, you have my sympathy.  Gabapentin is a first line choice of nueropathic pain remedies, in my opinon you should not stop Lyrica, give it time.  Lyrica is offered is dosage from an average of 150/mg a day for certain nueropathic pain relief, (i.e. fibro/diabetic neuropathy) but in your case would most likely be best at 300/mg a day,

(Lyrica is prescribed at lower doses than 300/mg daily but can be upped to 900/mg daily, although trials say that there is not much benefit after 300/daily.)  Please don't stop. but if you must. weening off Lyrica requires cutting the dose to 50 percent for a period of a week and then a slow reduction from there for a period of two weeks, (i.e. a quater dose for a week.)  

I gave up on these forums a while back, I work in the medical field and have had many negative comments come back to me when I was just trying to help, some people don't listen.

BTW check for MS/shingles as a possible cause for your TN.

Best of luck and prayers... Grey....

Hi Grey

I have been taking pregabalin (75mg twice daily) for two weeks and it has transformed my life!! I was previously suffering from the fight and flight out of control neurotransmitter you described. I suffered severe anxiety for over 3 months and the only medication doctors prescribed was sertraline which made me feel worse. Gave this up after 10 weeks and then was referred to mindfulness course despite my continuing extreme suffering! In desperation saw a senior psychiatrist who prescibed pregabalin. My suffering is finally over thank God and I wish I could have had advice from someone like yourself. If anyone is suffering similar symptoms please give pregabalin a try. The treatment of mental health in the UK is a bit of a lottery.

best wishes

geoff

good for some, not everyone, I took 28 x 25mg caps over 21 days, made me very ill, but was told to take or else.   so I took.  I am addicted to it and it is very difficult to withdraw, have just about all side effects printed in leaflet, plus a lot more not listed, I need some positive help.  rosie.

Hey Grey: While I appreciate your front line and professional experience, I fear there are many professionals turning to lyrica for long term pain mangement, anxiety etc without understanding that this drug can really turn on you. Lyrica withdwal syndrome does appear to be rare, but for those lucky few it can be near devastating. To all readers please inform yourself about the potential for lyrica with withdrawal. It's all over the internet now and there is a lyrica survivors group on facebook with close to a 1000 members.  In short, lyrica can create symptoms that mimic both benzo and opiate withdrawal and it can last for months and months and it is sheer hell so please approach this drug very carefully.

hey geoff i have just started pregabalin and its very strong i felt realy stoned the first dose i took and i was at a friends just hanging out after a huge panic attack the second dose i took at night and it felt really over whelming . Day two i took it at work i work in a shop and i managed to get through the day it just feels very strong and powerful at the moment . Im kind of freaking out how fast it works because my minds gone from 10000 miles an hour to almost halting and i feel very unbalanced . Im on day three at the moment im exhausted from the two weeks of anxiety im just very confused at the moment i dont know how i feel to be honest but im clumsy but trying to get things done and keep focused . I felt moments of highs yesterday on it while working it was strange but i dont know if that was just because i felt relief from the anxiety . Any feedback would be good thanks

 

Keep at it, it takes several weeks to feel 'normal'. Accept you will feel weird etc, benefits will come, its a fair tradeoff for reduced anxiety.

I understand that many people are concerned about withdrawal effects with many medicines. But I think this is a misplaced worry. Why are people taking the medicine in the first place? For these types of illnesses it is not like popping some painkillers or taking antibiotics. These are medications that you take for a medium or longer term, with no defined period when you start. Withdrawal, however bad - can be tackled in the future after you are feeling much better, when you will be more resilient to the withdrawal symptoms. I would say, if the side effects of adapting to a new medication are something you can get through, then do it. You'll be on the medication for a while, so stick with it, and park the withdrawal worry for six months or a year, until say three months time after you are properly recovered. Remember for depression and anxiety, the medicines are addressing a chemical imbalance, and the brain takes a long time to adapt and return to normal.

I do  not think that pregabalin withdrawal is that rare, but i do think it is rarely recorded by the medical profession unfortunately as doctors may put symptoms down to other things. Time is a factor for doctors. sorry to be so cynical but most are at a lost as to what to do with mental symptoms.

One doctor who did spend more time investigating this said no one should be on pregabalin for more than 6 months.