Has anyone ever heard or experienced worsening of symptoms using these drugs?
Both of these drugs can make you really drowsy which, in theory, could bring on symptoms. Similar to how benzodiazepines bring on symptoms for many people. I know the drugs work very differently, but I think the point still stands.
I ask because I’ve seen a very large change in rls switching from gabapentin to pregablin. I have been taking mirapex .125 and 900mg of gabapentin. I take the gabapentin with the hopes it will improve my sleep quality (it doesn’t). I wanted to increase my gabapentin because I wasn’t getting any additional benefit from it so I switched over to pregablin; something stronger and I get headaches from gabapentin above 900. Now, I’ve dosed up from 100mg to 200mg over the past 5 days but last night I needed .375 mirapex to stop my RLS. That’s unheard of for me and triple my dose from the previous week. I can’t imagine augmenting that quickly and my symptoms haven’t started occurring any earlier in the day.
The pregablin definitely makes me more drowsy, but I’m wondering if it’s also making my rls worse.
Pregablin or Gabapentin Making RLS Worse
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Re: Pregablin or Gabapentin Making RLS Worse
I got "restless arms" when I took on Gabapentin. Previously the symptoms started in my legs and then were all over my body, but then my legs were perfectly calm while my arms experienced all the symptoms. Really weird. But that was a time when I had augmented on pramipexole and went off it cold turkey (a month earlier). Still, there was a clear correlation here, as my "restless arms" stopped when I cut out the Gabapentin.
Re: Pregablin or Gabapentin Making RLS Worse
I only had experience with both drugs. With Gabapentin it felt like my feet and calves were frozen while Pregabalin was making me horribly depressed and causing even worse paresthesia in my legs.
Antiepileptics in general have lots of side effects, I had issues with most of them, however I tolerate Oxcarbazepine really well while almost all others have been a disaster.
Oh and of course you can augment quickly. It took me less than 2 weeks to augment the first time on pramipexole and only with a lot of trickery I was able to take it for several weeks before I augmented again. Some people just augment quickly. When I tried ropinirole, I augmented from the very first dose.
Antiepileptics in general have lots of side effects, I had issues with most of them, however I tolerate Oxcarbazepine really well while almost all others have been a disaster.
Oh and of course you can augment quickly. It took me less than 2 weeks to augment the first time on pramipexole and only with a lot of trickery I was able to take it for several weeks before I augmented again. Some people just augment quickly. When I tried ropinirole, I augmented from the very first dose.
Re: Pregablin or Gabapentin Making RLS Worse
An unlikely consideration but one I was just going to report elsewhere here on the board is the material of the capsules. Perhaps you have an intolerance to something in the capsule itself? I recently discovered that all my prescription medications are in gelatin capsules, and I have Histamine Intolerance. Gelatin triggers histamine in the body. And for those of you sensitive to oxalates, gelatin can generate oxalates. In my case, induced histamine causes RLS throughout my body, and a hyper awareness of my PLMs. I still can’t believe that something so small could cause so much havoc. I ordered empty Vegetarian capsules (plant/vegetable cellulose ) from Amazon and re-made my Gabapentin, and several other medications. I switched all my supplements. My symptoms improved immediately. One of my pharmacies (the compounding one) offers a selection of capsules but the conventional pharmacy does not so I have to re-make each refill. There are tools that make this process easier. One last consideration is fillers. Almost all medications have additional substances added to the actual medicine. People sometimes have reactions to these fillers.