A watercolor painting of me floating in the sky holding my cane. I am laying back. I am also surrounded by pills and playing cards with a medical design theme.
I am writing this while fucked up right now

Saying hello (again) to Gabapentin (side effects)

Published on : filed under "Gambling on Life", by WFL

This post, like others that will follow it, is a continuation of my Gambling On Life series.

We're pulling a Gambling on Life deep cut out from the archives here, it seems.

When I first started pursuing treatment for my myriad of chronic pain issues, I opted to go the pain management route to help me get shit under control before I start actually hitting up the other docs needed. They put me on a drug called Gabapentin.

As I wrote about previously, Gabapentin has some.. side effects. Side effects that are hitting me fucking hard right now, So hard I had to dig up my old notes on them (because anybody with multiple chronic health conditions should always document everything they can) to try and decide if I am fucked up because of the drug, or if I am fucked up because I fucked up while taking the drug.

It actually looks like my body is doing a "We've been away from you so long let's fucking party" with Gabapentin thanks to my elevated pain (which - based on my notes - tended to also indicate when I'd be feeling more fucked up in response).

Here's the thing: I'm only on 100mg before bed right now, and we're doing a very slow build-up; We're waiting at least a month before bumping up that evening dose, and we haven't even talked about adding an AM dose yet.

When i quit Gabapentin I was on 600mg a day (and, as an side, the withdrawal effects from a fast titration from Gabapentin were horrific).

I am on 1/6th of that.

It's not all bad, though; My nerve pain has actually been just slightly better, even on that low dose.. And I am sleeping better, too (the first night I slept over 8 fucking hours and was woken up by my alarm for the first time in years).

With the side effects of Gabapentin, there is another benefit.. While I may feel like a drunk idiot, I won't actually experience a hangover.

I get why some folks take this shit recreationally, but.. I hate this kinda shit.

And having balance issues on top of having neurological and joint problems necessitating the use of a cane?

You can be damned sure I'm being more cautious and deliberate when walking.

At least my brain still knows how to brain even when I'm fucked up like this; It just brains a little slower.. Which also kinda sucks, because it is frustrating to not be able to quickly come up with quips in casual conversation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get frustrated at my brain for hitting the wrong keyboard shortcuts on my new Linux setup (a few weeks ago I switched to CachyOS + Niri, which is exceptionally keyboard-shortcut-heavy).