-hospitalization video:
Hey everyone i hope everyone’s been well i haven’t posted a like serious video in a while mostly because i actually okay bye i’ve been doing really well and so posting videos about ptsd or mental health makes me feel like a frog like a fraud it feels fraudulent to do so which logically i know doesn’t really make much sense like i can see both how i would feel
That way and also why should it feel that way yeah so i’ve actually been wanting to do a review of this medication that i started maybe two or three months ago called gabapentin and the reason i wanted to wait was because i wanted to sort of give it some time so it’s been about two to three months now and i think i can give a pretty accurate description of how
I uh how it’s how it’s affected me i’m gonna eat some bagel bites really quick and then we’ll get back to this back am i good okay i’m good all right so i wanted to talk about gabapentin i’m feeling kind of anxious right now this feels weird to do it i just it just feels so fragile i think i’m gonna i’m gonna put a pause on this right now i don’t know
I feel weird about it okay hello i’m back feeling less strange than i did earlier i don’t know if i’ll keep that part but probably was like indicative of something i don’t know yeah i just felt really really weird talking about it okay so basically two to three months ago i can’t really keep track i was prescribed gabapentin which is generic for neurontin
One capsule by mouth twice daily as needed so max two per day pretty much as needed prn the hundreds look like this for me yeah so they come in these capsules the reason that they were prescribed for me was because i was still having panic attacks actually the main reason they were prescribed for me is um i’ll put the link in the description but i had a this
Weird episode at the hospital and basically it was i was having like seizure-like symptoms and it was diagnosed as a panic attack but my psychiatrist was like i don’t feel like it sounds like a panic attack i don’t really know what it is but like you were like taking all the right steps to like mitigate it and nothing helped i was taking like extra klonopin and
It didn’t help so he thought it was kind of strange so after that he was like okay i want to try gabapentin just prn and just treat it he wanted me to treat it as if it were like emergency quantum pin or something yeah that’s how he wanted me to treat it so i’ll go right into how i felt when i first took it well first of all the good news is since i’ve been
Prescribed i haven’t had one panic attack and before that i was having like i would keep a list and i was having close to 5 to 15 a month i know that’s a big range but i was having a lot probably 10 to 15 a month and it was really it was like an issue of course because it’s not fun and then it would like wipe me out and sometimes they would like go the side
Effects like go into the next day so yeah this there’s been this huge change since i’ve taken it and i’m hesitant to just assign it to gabapentin because i think there are a lot of variables at play yeah so we’ll talk about that but first well so obviously i’m going to give this a good review for ptsd i did some research i think mostly it’s used for nerve pain
And maybe seizures or something i i could be wrong i have to re-look it up but it’s used off label for a lot of things including anxiety i think for the for the pain when it’s prescribed it’s like a way higher dose it’s like i don’t know like sixteen hundred or something rather than just like a hundred hundred milligrams or maybe like three thousand milligrams
I don’t know anyway okay so at first when i first took it i definitely felt emotional blunting so i knew something was working obviously it works on the gaba gaba receptors i don’t know if it’s got more gaba so it works on those receptors so it’s the same thing as planopin and benzos i’ve actually heard that when you taper off it’s a similar experience to
That so it’s unpleasant really unpleasant that’s something i took into account when i decided to try it so at first i felt emotional blunting which i used to feel with klonopin as well and lorazepam like um dysphoria and so i really didn’t like it i was like i don’t i don’t think this is for me it also lasts a lot longer and it takes a lot longer to kick in
And it’s not like a benzodiazepine where i know i can feel it working and i’m like oh it’s working it’s just sort of like in the backdrop and i’m like hmm i’m a little more emotionally blunted i took the gabapentin about an hour ago hmm i think that’s it and then over time i realized like when it’s like working or when it’s kicking in but usually it’s a drowsy
Feeling and it’s not pleasant i would say to me at least so yeah at first i had emotional blunting basically meaning like i just felt like i wasn’t feeling as deeply as i usually do and that matters a lot for me so i was like i don’t know if this is for me but i kept trying it because my anxiety was through the roof that was before i was like still worried
About having panic attacks because i was still having that pattern of like 10 to 15 panic attacks a month so i kept trying it just one 100 milligrams which is like a really low dose and the blunting went away really quickly probably by the third or fourth time the emotionally blunting went away so i think there’s maybe a little bit of tolerance but there’s not i
Don’t feel tolerance to the point that i feel like i need to dose more than 100 to 200 at a time online if you go on like reddit and kind of that kind of stuff people do say a tolerance builds really quickly but i’m not sure if a lot of the time like i think a lot of the times it’s because people are taking it to like get high i’m pretty sure and so if you take
Like a big amount one day to get high then the next day it’s like doesn’t work or something like that which i guess would make sense because people on a high dose for pain like they can’t take it and then feel like super high every single time i take it of course a tolerance is going to build so i don’t know it’s been two to three months i have never felt like
I’ve needed to titrate up and also like my doctor has asked if i want to titrate up and i i’ve declined it so far so yeah pretty cool there’s no panic since i’ve been prescribed and going back to what i said i don’t want to establish causation because i also started trauma therapy with a brand new therapist and around that same time basically and immediately
I really really liked her and immediately i knew that we would probably work well together so it takes a while for that alliance to build but i already liked her from the start and i already felt like wow she’s doing like all these different things that are like more actionable than my than my old therapist we just did like talk therapy and it just wasn’t
Working so i feel like from when i started my trajectory of addressing my ptsd has just like flew off instead of before it was like this and then once i started therapy it was like or change therapy sorry it i changed the trauma focused therapy per my psychiatrist’s request and it was a great idea it just like took off like that i don’t think therapists like
To prescribe to a certain type of therapy but just kind of like dbt stuff which um dialectical behavior therapy not to be confused with cbt which is cognitive behavioral therapy so dbt primarily helps clients regulate intense emotions and improve interpersonal relationships through validation acceptance and behavior change and then cbt primarily helps clients
Recognize and change problematic patterns of thinking and behaving i guess we do kind of both but one thing that like kind of like was delightful moment for me was like when we went through like a list of beliefs that are mythical but people believe them so one of them right now i it’s kind of on my wall because i wanted to think about it because i believed
It to be true and it was that letting others know that i’m feeling bad is a burden so i put it up on my wall just to like think about it because we just had like an almost like an entire session was about this about how like this is why i believe this is true and then her trying to show me that it’s not and like it was like the entire session so we do things
Like that and it’s just like a lot more actionable which is cool so i don’t know i really think that it’s like a mix of things and i’ve talked about uh this to her and in therapy too about oh i was expecting like a light bulb moment and that’s like kind of a myth there is no light bulb moment it’s like a lot of things start happening and it’s just like little
Things and little variables that amount to like suddenly you feel like you’re improving so i think that’s what happened and i guess got a pencil played a role in it and then i guess another thing is like i don’t know if i want to include it but like i started just dating around again and it happened so long and i don’t know i just think it helped so there’s
Like little things here and there anyway so let’s go back to the ground fencing so i’m prescribed 100 milligrams twice a day as needed so what happens is basically if i take my first dose of klonopin in the morning and i’m still feeling super super wired i’ll take a hundred but if i’m not wired enough and i take it or if i think i’m wired sometimes i take it
After my first dose and i get really drowsy and i don’t really like that feeling and then i drink a bunch of where i eat caffeine chocolates i eat a bunch of caffeine to counteract it and caffeine can kind of induce anxiety so it just becomes like dumb like head-to-head counterproductive thing so that’s something i always have to watch out i actually tend to
Try really hard to stay away from taking it during the day i wonder if 100 milligrams would even make someone else drowsy during the day considering some people take grams of this at a time as prescribed by their doctor so maybe it’s just my body but i definitely feel like markedly more drowsy and like sometimes i do take a nap so if i take it at night it’s the
Same thing like i’m still kind of wired and sometimes it’s like kind of nice just to wind down a little bit make sure like i get enough sleep so sometimes i’ll take 200 at night so instead of taking the one and then one later i’ll just take 200 at night i think it’s helpful for my sleep i think it has been it’s helped me kind of like wind wind down especially
When i’m still feeling kind of like hyper vigilant okay yeah that’s all i’m gonna talk about i was gonna talk i had on my list like some kind of like sexual side effect thing but i don’t really feel comfortable talking about that so yeah that’s all i’m gonna talk about for now so so far experience is good it’s not perfect because there is that drowsiness factor
That i really really don’t like but i mean i haven’t had a pound attack since i started taking it it does help i can feel it working against anxiety despite the drowsiness so it does something yeah it’s not an in your face like it’s said to be not addictive like benzodiazepines okay i think i definitely see why arlo online for sure people abuse this drug but
Yeah i can definitely see why because it’s not something that you take and then immediately helps i think like in addiction theory one of the reasons like so i believe is the shorter acting or the shorter time it takes for a drug to hit the more addicting it is so let’s say nicotine right or cigarettes as soon as you take a drag of a cigarette it hits you and
Like that’s one of the reasons it’s so addicting and then how long the drug lasts also affects that addictive property so like nicotine you inhale it and then you feel it it’s very short and then so you just it’s like habit forming like that so that’s the same thing as like say xanax or a benzodiazepine it’s it only takes a little time to hit you especially
Xanax i think is like all doctors think is the most addictive because it’s the fastest acting and then the shortest half-life half-life meaning it doesn’t last as long so i think one of the reasons that it’s not believed that government content is habit-forming or addicting or addictive is because it takes probably i would say an hour to an hour and a half
To kick in so i would say like if you try to keep that in mind it’s not instant and maybe that’s just a way they design the drug i don’t know i don’t think drugs are designed that way because i don’t think we have enough knowledge i think we can just put stuff together and try it on people i mean uh maybe animals first but yep so that is my review thanks for
Watching it’s been a while since i’ve posted like serious mental health related videos so yep all right bye
Transcribed from video
Gabapentin Review for PTSD By jessie
