I've been taking gabapentin for 10 days now. So far, it hasn't seemed to be particularly effective at controlling anger or outbursts. Does this medication take awhile to work? Does anyone have any experience with using it to help with anger?

Neurontin is not very strong as mood stabilizers go. It can take about 4 weeks for it to kick in. The down side is that about 40% of the people who take it cannot metabolize it properly and it simply will not work for them. It's use as a mood stabilizer in bipolar disorder is a bit controvertial as many people question it's effectiveness.

If it works for you, it is a great med... it is cheap and has few side effects.

I've been on it for 2 years, with no problems.. I'm not bipolar. I started taking it to help with tinnitus and hyperacusous (It helped) and my doc kept me on it to control epilepsy... I have noticed that it does act as a mild mood stabilizer.

good luck

Me :D

I have been avoiding posting b/c I don't want to be the next one to have my head bitten off.

However, I do like to help [for the sake of other readers, too], so here goes.

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Neurontin is also used for a # of conditions. Limbic or Temporal irritability ('rage reduction' and mood stabilization), to dampen the signals in Chronic pain, to reduce RLS/PLMs in sleep, IIRC.

It basically Reduces nerve cell 'communication'/chatter/irritability on many brain levels, so i can see how it would work for all of these conditions.


It seems like neurontin is not terribly potent, doesn't it? Yup. :S
(e.g. has to be taken in high doses)


That said, I think that it is one of the best tolerated and safest anti-seizure meds on the market, so I'm glad to hear your doctor has tried Rx-ing it.

Some anti-seizure meds I took for my Neuralgia were BRUTAL. (e.g. Tegretol; 'nuff said)

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I took Neurontin for nerve pain ('neuralgia') after a 'slip and fall' injury. (Chronic nerve pain resulted in my groin/thigh; femoral nerve. Later they figured that i tore a deep back/hip/groin muscle, affecting the nerve. Later cured the neuralgia with Laser, but that is another story... )

Anywho, for chronic nerve pain, it has to be take in very high doses. e.g. 1600-2400 mg/day (maybe more)

Main side effects (for me) were sedation, risk of falling/incoordination, and some episodic double vision. (I am easily sedated!)


It seems to be an Expensive drug. (One of my drug plans, the gov't one, didn't cover it.)

Much more tolerable than the Tegretol, which is another drug I tried for the neuralgia. That's a nasty one, too.

HTH.

PS. I will non-specifically ask my SO which meds he has used for his pts. with bipolar, _and_ for any 'off label' ideas he's heard of, that can work. Forensics folks tend to encounter pts. who have 'tried everything' w/ little success.

My only other suggestion is to ask about seeing a Psycho-Pharmacologist. They are the Off Label drug and drug combining experts!

Queens, I am sorry that you are afraid of having your head bitten off.

I am on the lowest dose of neurontin. So, it could also be a dosing issue. I'll mention all of this to my psychiatrist and see what he wants to do. Because I'm a petite woman, I often have to start new medications at a low dose.

I'm presently on 900 mg per day. I was taking 1800 per day to treat my hyperacusous and it did help improve things noticably.... ie I no longer panic when the telephone rings...

I had some drowsyness when I first started taking it and that lasted for a few weeks and passed. I've not had any other side effects that I have noticed.

as far as anti-seizure meds go.. it does not wierd me out like diantin did.. My short trial of phenobarbitol resulted in hallucinations , so I guess neurontin is a huge ijmprovement.

neurontin has to be taken in high doses because the body does not metabolize gabapentin very well.

An interesting thing about it is that taking more is not always good. At some point taking more reduces the amount of the drug that actually makes it to the brain.
While the max safe dose is high, the theraputic does will be much lower and going beyond the dose that works could result in reduced effectiveness.

It also works a lot better if you keep the level in your blood constant. That means that taking smaller doses several times a day will be more effective than taking one large dose a day.

I take 300 mg three times a day but it would probably be more effective if I took 200 mg four times day (but I don't want the hassle of taking meds 4 times a day).

Me :D

My daughter is currently taking 1200 mgs at bedtime for bipolar II disorder. IMHO its not working well for her; all it seems to do is sedate her to go to sleep and keep her slightly more level when she wakes up. She still needs to take Risperdal for agitation.

What is IMHO?

IMHO == in my humble opinion :)

Lamictal was very effective and didn't have any side effects until I got that god awful lamictal rash. My psychiatrist said that tegretol also has a more common side effect of rash. So that isn't likely to work.

I'm amazed that more new anti-convulsants, with less side effects, haven't been created. If I were a drug company I'd be looking at that as a huge source of increased sales.

Queens, I found out from my doctor that mood stabilization is an off-label use for most anti-convulsants (i.e., the FDA hasn't officially approved most anti-convulsants for use as mood stabilizers). Given that I'm allergic to lamictal (one of the few anti-convulsants that is FDA approved for treatment of mood stabilizers), I'm glad that my doctor isn't opposed to prescribing drugs for off-label use.

Emma, I have a concern. Please respond to the messages and/or emails I sent you.

Would you all believe I'm taking Gabapentin for my hot flashes?? I take 1 3 x/day or 3 at night so that I can sleep without waking up in a sweat... It does help if I could just remember to take them.

That is a new one. Neurontin (gabapentin)is a funny drug. It is used for so many things. Neuropathic pain, epilelepsy, for bipolar disorder as a mood stabilizer, for tinnitis and hyperacusis, and now for hot flashes??? Sure , why not?

Me :D

Excellent to help sleep without that nasty hung over spaced out feeling you get if you take Ambien or Xanax. I take 600MG at night plus Prozac during the day. The problem is that there may be a bad rebound effect the next day whereas you feel more manic than usual -- but that may or not be the prozac