Help, trialling gabapentin

[maddietod]

My new sleep doctor has me trialling gabapentin. His hope is that it will stop RLS and that will improve sleep. The RLS showed up in an old sleep study, but I haven't noticed it since I started taking magnesium. My doctor hopes to get me up to 300mg/night, so that's his idea of a normal dose.

I've read through some great threads about gabapentin and Lyrica, but I could use some tailored ideas.

I've done 6 nights of 100mg at bedtime. This has almost fixed my frozen shoulder - unexpected! But sleep has not improved at all. My-normal is 4-5 wakings in 9 hours, quickly back asleep. Last night I woke up 4 times but only slept 7 hours. I usually leave the house for short walks once or twice a week, but I haven't gone out since starting the gabapentin.

I'm trying to decide what's next. I'm going to stay on 100mg through the weekend to see if last night was a fluke or not. My next dose level would be 200mg. I'm torn between stopping altogether, staying at this dose for a while because of the pain relief if my sleep is no worse overall than my-normal, and stepping the dose up to see if this is just too little medication to help with sleep.

Help, please!

 

[BrightCandle]

Its been a long time since I tried gabapentin but I recall stopping it within a few days, something really bad happened with this drug that much I do recall. Sounds like you aren't suffering anything problematic so at least on that front all is relatively well and since its mostly not worked (one night isn't a good signal its not something that builds AFAIK) so far you may as well continue with the plan.

 

[Sushi]

My new sleep doctor has me trialling gabapentin. His hope is that it will stop RLS and that will improve sleep. The RLS showed up in an old sleep study, but I haven't noticed it since I started taking magnesium. My doctor hopes to get me up to 300mg/night, so that's his idea of a normal dose.

I've read through some great threads about gabapentin and Lyrica, but I could use some tailored ideas.

I was prescribed Gabapentin for sleep, starting with 50 mg per night as it can be hard to get used to it. I titrated up to 100 mg but stopped after a while as I didn’t think it was helping sleep. Later another doctor prescribed it for restless leg syndrome which was driving me nuts and I tried again titrating up to 300 mg per night. This time it did help with sleep – I just had not been taking enough. But sleep was still problematic and my doctor raised the dose to 400 mg per night. I tolerate that well and it does help considerably with sleep. I found that it works best if I take it several hours before going to bed so that it is fully assimilated by bedtime. It has eliminated the RLS, which also helps with sleep. For me, magnesium did not resolve it.

 

[Springbok1988]

I have found that gabapentin on its own is not enough for me to sleep. I take it along with Quviviq to sleep. Quviviq on its own doesn’t help, either. But together I often get 8 hours of sleep. Both meds have an adjustment period. I’d give it some more time and consider adding another sleep med. If gabapentin helps with the restless legs, as it does for me, then that’s one problem down. If you stop the gabapentin and try a different sleep med then you’ll have the restless legs interfering with your sleep.

 

[maddietod]

I don't think I have restless legs any more. My only in-lab sleep study is over 10 years old. The gabapentin has just about fixed all of my muscle pain, but sleep is getting steadily worse since I started it a week ago. So I don't think pain or RLS is what's waking me up. That's useful information.

Did any of you initially react by getting fractured sleep, which then improved on higher doses? @Sushi what did you mean by "it can be hard to get used to it."?

 

[Sushi]

Did any of you initially react by getting fractured sleep, which then improved on higher doses? @Sushi what did you mean by "it can be hard to get used to it."?

I remember feeling a bit dizzy a while after taking it and feeling groggy in the morning and it did take a couple of weeks for that to go away—on my second try with it, I titrated it up really slowly and I don’t notice any side effects now. And yes, it did have a negative effect on my sleep initially. Like @Springbok1988 it isn’t enough to put me to sleep but helps a lot in combination with something else. A new integrative medicine doctor prescribed CBD tincture as well (my cardiologist also approved it) and this has really helped as well.