My experience treating peripheral neuropathy pain due to Rheumatoid inflammation with Gabapentin. I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis over 20 years ago. I was prescribed Gabapentin for neuropathic pain in my arms in 2011 and have been taking it for about 5 years now.
Hi it’s carmen welcome to my channel and living with rheumatoid arthritis i was diagnosed with rheumatoid in 1995 and i’ve been on a lot of medications over the years today i wanted to talk to you about my experience with the drug gabapentin also known as neurontin the gabapentin was originally formulated to treat epilepsy and then they also found that it was good
For neuropathic pain or nose pain in particular nerve pain that comes after shingles is kind of how they first started using it for that and now it’s also used for neuropathy peripheral neuropathy in about 19 or not 19 2010 or 2011 i was experiencing a lot of tingling in my arms like starting at my wrists and going all the way up halfway get up up into my arm and
I would experience that all day and it was especially nerve-wracking at night because i’m just laying in bed it’s quiet and then i could really notice it and it made me quite anxious i was in between insurance at that time so i was just on my god wants to come in you know please so anyways i have these symptoms this tingling going up my arm and it was always there
And i guess had been going on for about a year and i didn’t have a doctor at the time because i was in between insurance and so i was on prednisone diclofenac and in braille during this time and i went to see a psychiatric nurse actually a actually she’s physician assistant and i had mentioned to her that i was feeling so much anxiety and that i was having this
Tingling in my arm and i aren’t both arms and i didn’t really know if it was nerves or if it was actually just a symptom of anxiety so she she’s the one that started me on the neurontin she said it’s good for that type of pain the peripheral neuropathy and she said there was also some indication that it was good for anxiety so she put me on that i think i was taking
She gave me the medication the neurontin that she’d gotten from a drug rep so i was on that for about a year from her for free and i would take that medication at night i think it was about i think was 400 milligrams of niacin in the evening after dinner the first thing i noticed without medication as far as side-effects is i was so sleepy i slept so good for you
Know i slept really good for the first month it would just kind of knock me out and also it completely took away all that tingling in my arms once in a while also go get a little bit tingling right near the wrist and right you know right in the beginning of the arm right here but not not very often and sometimes too when i swim when i do my water therapy class my
Clothes and my fingertips will tingle still but the arm thing was completely gone so after i was on it for a year with her when i did get insurance and going to see a primary care she just continued a prescription but i had to switch to the gabapentin because thinner on was crazy expensive like $67 was my copay i think for a one-month supply so the working with a
Gabapentin was a little tougher i’m used to it now but at first you take you take a your dose in the morning and then in the evening i think for epilepsy they have you take it in the morning in the afternoon and in the evening that’s interop neuropathy they just give it to you in the morning and the evening so i had i started taking you know 200 in the morning and
200 in the evening but it was making me so tired in the morning that i started taking you 300 to 400 in the evening and only 100 in the morning and that now that’s what i settled on is 100 and the morning and 300 in the evening it doesn’t seem to make me tired anymore at least maybe that’s just my norm but i kind of feel tired so i’m not sure if it’s the drive itself
And you can go on this drug you can go all the way up to 1,800 milligrams and my rheumatologist often will say if i’m complaining of pain she’ll say well you can always increase the gabapentin but i have tried to increase it you know take an extra 200 at night and then extra 200 in the morning and honestly i don’t feel any difference in my joint pain or muscle pain
It’s only really that tingling sensation that it that it works for for me and so i just reduced back down because it’s 300 at night and 100 in the morning and i’ve even been thinking of trying to get off of the 100 morning because another side effect of this medication which is with a lot of medications is you know not able to recall things slow response time not
Able to concentrate and i do have those symptoms and i’m imagine it comes from a lot of different reasons why i have that sense for this drug when you first get on it they tell you you know not to be driving until you really are used to the drug and know how it affects you so ya know driving at first that i tell you if you aren’t sleeping well which i think is a
Symptom often with people that are in chronic pain and people with rheumatoid and lupus and fibromyalgia i all have that hard time sleeping in this drug will healthy sleeps no doubt since ii will love that at first i think maybe that is where some of the studies will show that it’s good even for generalized body pain i think it’s because you sleep so good that maybe
Some inner pain lessens you know anyway that was my theory i did look up some study to do this video because i had you know my physician assistant that originally gave it to me had made that comment about it it’s maybe good for anxiety also well they did some you know some people did some very small studies on other brand name of this drug really small studies to
Try to show that it was good for anxiety on patients before they got surgery very specific types of anxiety and they would show that there was some difference over placebo and those studies were all in the 90s when you get into the this century the studies that have been done have do not indicate that that that is a true conclusion at all partly because it’s called
Gabapentin i think people might think that it’s affecting the gaba transmitter which is good for peace of mind but it doesn’t affect that so but because it is it does give you some fat for the sedation maybe in that way it’s good for anxiety but on the information sheet the drug information sheet which i’ll link down below it doesn’t it’s not prescribed for that
It’s not indicated for anxiety if you’re having anxiety there’s a lot of drugs that are very specific for that condition so you know to take this and hope that that will be a side effect of it i don’t think is really i mean i wouldn’t take it just for that let me just look at my notes make sure i talked about everything i wanted to talk about oh yeah the other thing
Is i didn’t even know this i’ve been taking it went five years or so and then when i was looking up the drug affirmation sheet for the video that this drug does have some drug drug interactions so one thing is not to be taking it with an antacid i guess the antacid causes the miguel accountant to be like 20% less metabolized or less used in your body and the other
Thing that i was really surprised to see is that it has an interaction with the hydrocodone which i recently been on how to code on maybe the last six months or so maybe a little bit longer but it says that it reduces the effectiveness is kind of hydrocodone by like 20% so that’s pretty interesting to me and makes me feel a little bit better about money if i could
And usage or you know feeling like the smaller doses don’t even help me at all and it probably has something to do with the interaction with the gabapentin so now my i guess my status is that i’m not having the tingling and i think that it’s it is you know it will work for you if you’re having even tingling just in your forearms um you know for your wrist being
Inflamed basically so if you are having no symptoms you should talk to your doctor about this drug if they haven’t mentioned it to you already and like i said up at the p i shoot down below so you can read it and see in a service and with any problems with you taking it and help you have the renal any class of renal failure if your gfr is below 60 then they’re
Going to really reduce the amount of gabapentin that you would take and also the screen for creatinine if your creatinine is high they will also reduce the gabapentin so most people that see a rheumatologist get the get the creatinine test and the gfr really every three months so the doctor can watch that for you and that’s all i just wanna wish you all so happy
New year in january it’s a beautiful day here in washington and i hope it’s a beautiful day where you want to like
Transcribed from video
Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain Treatment: Gabapentin By Carmen C
