Resolved question:
my doctor will not give me more than 300mg of gabapentin 3x a day. I have been using it for mood stabilization for years but have been use to taking 800mg 3x a day. but felt this was a little too much. it bother my eye site. but gabapentin has helped stabilize mood fantasticly. it was first given to me by my psychiatrist. when I changed to my family doctor he said this 800mg dosage was crazy. said he would not give me more than 300mg 3x a day and that this was an extremely abused drug and sold on the street. my mood level is now bad and i mean bad. i have more pain in my feet and am depressed much of the time. I use the 300mg at about 5-6 times a day and feel normal and good but it lasts only about 2 weeks because he does not prescribe my enough. of course I have not told him that for fear he will dismiss me. I have tried to tell him all this and that peoples body chemistry are different ,but he just will not here of it. don't know what to do. I would buy it on the street if I could but no one has ever heard of this drug every being sold. please help I just want to feel normal again. thank you Don
Submitted:
4 Days
Category:
Psychiatrist
Thanks for using Doctorspring.com for posting your query.
I have gone through your question in detail and I can understand what you are going through.
GabaPentin is not available without prescription and that makes it clear that unless your doctor writes it, you are not going to get it. So coming to the next option as substitute. You have been using gabapentin for two reasons...one the mood stabilizer and the second the neurogenic pain. For mood stabilizer there are plenty of other drugs as well like valproate or lithium or carbamazepine which your doctor wont be afraid to write. More over the third option i.e. carbamazepine is also a good drug to treat the neurogenic pains. So this molecule could be a good drug to substitute Gabapentin. And the best part is unlike Gabapentin it is not habit forming.
I would suggest that you discuss these point with your psychiatrist and get the medicine changed to carbamazepine and get off gabapentin completely. Even if you become habitual to it, the things should stop at some point.
Hope this helps
Kind regards,
Dr. Srikanth Reddy MD
I have been on tegeratol and lithium and both were totally ineffective. these as you know are for seizures, antipsychotics and bipolar disorders. Everyone is chemically different.And I am going to a family doctor that thinks he knows more than psychiatrist. I guess my choice is just stop this med and learn to live with depression. Seems to me no one listens to what helps their patients. Doctors just what to cover there hidesides. I believe you gave me the best advise for me. I know its hard to diagnose people without seeing them and have time to really talk. Thankyou for feed back Best wish to you and your family P.S. I lost all my family mother,brother and sister in last 3 years.
Thanks for choosing doctorspring.com
Thanks for posting additional query.
I feel really sorry for you that the tegretol has not worked for you. But believe me there are plenty of other options for neuropathic pain which you can try for. One option is combining pregabaline and nortriptyline which comes as a combination tablets. That will help you in reducing the dosage of pregabaline. I have personally seen many patients improving on this combination. Other option could be biofeedback based relaxation therapy which is also very effective.
Hope this helps,
Do post additional queries if you have any,
Kind regards
Dr. Srikanth Reddy MD