Jokeshopbeard said:

What do you take it for, and why have power outages stopped you from procuring?

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What did I take it for? Honestly.... perceived gabapentin dependency It was prescribed to me in my early 20s by a psychiatrist in rehab who thought it might help me... I dunno, stay sober, or whatever. They just throw pills at you in rehab. At first the stuff made me feel a bit high all the time, so of course I loved taking it. After 6 months or so it didn't alter my mood at all, and I had heard others say it was habit forming, such that you need to taper in order to quit. I just... never felt like quitting. Never felt like "the right time"- always some other compounding stressors that made it so I thought "I'll just do this later on in life."

There was a winter storm in Texas we were totally unprepared for and most of the city- pharmacies included- lost both power and water for most of the week. There was no way for me to pick up my meds.

I expected to feel very anxious/jittery but as far as I can tell there is no difference 4.5 days out from my last dose.

Thank god I wasnt dependent on benzos

Quote:

400mg is pretty low for Gabapentin.  It has similar withdrawal effects to benzos.  They gave me a ton years ago when I was having nerve issues.  They just kept upping it and upping it.  I was taking about 2.5 grams a day at one point.  Apparently it's pretty hard to overdose on.  Still, it does have addiction potential, kinda like alcohol.  My insomnia came back full force when I stopped and I definitely had an uptick in general anxiety and restlessness.

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Jokeshopbeard said:

What kind of effects does it have, pleasant or otherwise?

I'v never heard of it doing much aside of making people feel sleepy...

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morrowasted said:

Been taking 400mg gabapentin tid for many years. Like 8+. I was always told by others that coming off of it would be difficult. Because of the power outages in texas i have been forced to go without it since monday. I felt no difference at all.


Seems like a pretty solid med to me if it works decently well and has little dependency associated issues but maybe i am just a freak

I think i will pick it up but no longer use it daily

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morrowasted said:

in someone who is not physically dependent (and frankly, to a much greater extent than with benzos, even those who are dependent), it can be a great non-intoxicating anxiolytic. I'm not planning to abuse it any more than someone who has a script for 10mg of valium 3x a day is abusing valium by only taking one 10mg valium as-needed for situations that warrant it




the above descriptions of the gabapentin "high" only occur in people who are naive to gabapentinoids and take 3x what they are prescribed, or people who take it regularly and take 8-10x what they are prescribed. I haven't done anything like that in at least 5 years. I don't even think it would work the way it did when I was naive if I tried. But I don't care to- I'm not looking to get high, but I do like to be on top of my game at all times.


I don't personally view using drugs without a "medical need" as necessarily constituting abuse. some things can be performance enhancers. everyone's case is different. someone who uses viagra just to make sex even more enjoyable despite the fact that they are capable of having sex without it, for example, is not abusing it in my mind.

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Ice9 said:

Pretty low dose, but after eight years, no signs of permanent tremors?

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Quote:

Gabapentin is absorbed slowly after oral administration, with maximum plasma concentrations attained within 3-4 hours. Orally administered gabapentin exhibits saturable absorption--a nonlinear (zero-order) process--making its pharmacokinetics less predictable. Plasma concentrations of gabapentin do not increase proportionally with increasing dose.

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Quote:

The absolute bioavailability of gabapentin drops from 60% to 33% as the dosage increases from 900 to 3600 mg/day, while the absolute bioavailability of pregabalin remains at > or = 90% irrespective of the dosage.

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Ice9 said:

morrowasted said:

in someone who is not physically dependent (and frankly, to a much greater extent than with benzos, even those who are dependent), it can be a great non-intoxicating anxiolytic. I'm not planning to abuse it any more than someone who has a script for 10mg of valium 3x a day is abusing valium by only taking one 10mg valium as-needed for situations that warrant it




the above descriptions of the gabapentin "high" only occur in people who are naive to gabapentinoids and take 3x what they are prescribed, or people who take it regularly and take 8-10x what they are prescribed. I haven't done anything like that in at least 5 years. I don't even think it would work the way it did when I was naive if I tried. But I don't care to- I'm not looking to get high, but I do like to be on top of my game at all times.


I don't personally view using drugs without a "medical need" as necessarily constituting abuse. some things can be performance enhancers. everyone's case is different. someone who uses viagra just to make sex even more enjoyable despite the fact that they are capable of having sex without it, for example, is not abusing it in my mind.

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Somewhere along the lines using a drug recreationally became synonymous with abuse.  It's worse with some drugs (stims/downers) than others like psychedelics.  If you are capable of using a drug safely, for a short time, just to get high recreationally, and studies show this applies to about 80% of drug users, then that is not abuse.

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Quote:

The affinity of pregabalin and gabapentin binding to a2-
d proteins (Kd) is nanomolar, whereas the physiological
actions of these drugs are usually in the low micromolar
range. One likely reason for this discrepancy is that endogenous a2-d ligands from living tissues (e.g., L-leucine,
L-isoleucine, L-valine)

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Quote:

Both of these results
suggest that endogenous small-molecule ligands, such as
the hydrophobic amino acids leucine and isoleucine, might
normally occupy the site to which gabapentin binds

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