Just been reading the study carried out by Massachusetts General Hospital reported in the New England Journal of Medicine on 13 Feb 2014. Worryingly, it reports that 2% of those on pregabalin experienced augmentation at the end of the 12 week trial.
Has anyone experienced augmentation on pregabalin?
Jools
I have not read this yet. Unless this is a nice big study, and has lots of people in it, 12 weeks is not a time period that can determine a period of augmentation. As far as I have been told by Dr. B and others, it is still dopamine meds only. Going to go find it and read it, but 2% of how many people is the 2%?- my question. 
nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/N...
719 patients in the study, so at least 14 augmented. I know it sounds weird, but as I am one of the 2% of people taking oxycontin who experienced panic attacks, sod's law means I'll be the odd bod who gets augmentation!
I'll keep taking them though, as the lovely Dr Buchfuhrer has advised me to increase by 75mg a week to try to achieve 7/8 hrs sleep instead of the 1 hour slots I am currently getting on 10mg oxy twice a day and 75mg pregabalin at night.
It is interesting reading though.
My dr also prescribes Temazepam along with the Ropinirole and the gabapentin. I get much better sleep, but I also fall asleep when I'm in a meeting, when I'm driving and when I'm making my jewelry. It's getting very bad. Any one else out there have this problem?
Hi AAusten
No one except me will be able to read your question so I suggest you make a new post by going to 'Home' at the top of the page and then look to the right and click on 'make a new post'. Title it something like Sleepiness on ropinirole and gabapentin. You should then get lots of replies from people who are having similar problems.
I was only on Ropinirole without any other meds until I had to stop taking it because of Augmentation. I think the 3 meds you are taking together will cause daytime sleepiness. Temazapam will still be in your system in the daytime. I'm sure others will have suggestions so do make the separate new Post.
Good luck
What they said is, to sum it up fast. Pregabalin was "much more effective than placebo", which would be an expected outcome. They did study these in some fashion over 52 weeks. 2% is a very low percentage when you are dealing with a margin of error. What they were doing with this study was to prove that pregabalin does not cause augmentation as often , if at all, than the dopamine med pramipexole. So, their conclusion for the study is that pregabalin worked better than placebo, and did not cause augmentation, except that pesky little 2%. The reason for the study was to show other meds are better to use if you are worried about augmentation, other than the dopamine ones. They are basically saying pregabalin is not going to quit on you, if it is a med that actually helps you, and several in the study were not helped by it either. The thing these days is they are trying to solve the augmentation issue. This is why Johns Hopkins is doing studies on opiates, the RLS community is concentrating on meds that will not augment like the dopamine ones.
Wouldn't it be brilliant if they could add something to the DA's that stopped them causing augmentation? When they worked, they were a miracle, until they turned nasty.
I read somewhere that someone is looking into this. I am pinning my hopes on it - life was almost normal for me when on pramipexole. Not a nice drug but then RLS is not a nice disease and the drugs I am on at the moment - although very nice in the sense of producing happy highs and controlling my urge-to-move - are not permitting what might be described as a normal existence.
Jools, with a disease as capricious as rls one can never rule anything out but augmentation on pregabalin does seem very unlikely.
Fingers crossed. x
I have been on Pregabalin for the last 2 years and have not found any augmentation symptoms....and also when I had to take them for a year 6 years ago. Pregabalin and slow release Targinact 10mg have literally saved my life....I think I may well have .....well l'm sure you know how bad things can get, and I got there on numerous occasions.
Thanks so much for that reasssurance flower-girl. I'm on slow release oxycontin 10mg and 100mg pregabalin and starting to increase pregabalin by 25 mg every 5 days to try to get more than 1.5hrs sleep at a time. I do indeed know exactly what you mean about that dark place those of us with severe RLS sometimes think of. I will be more positive now and hope to get some decent sleep. Take care,
Good luck tonight Jools, I hope tonight is the one when you get a good number of hours of sleep all together - no breaks
Thanks so much. I'll stay positive as I had a good night on thurs ( 3 lots of 2 hrs sleep- yippee!) so I'm sure there will be others, x
Hi I am Henshaw 241241i have been on pramipexole for about a year now seen a neurologist the dose I take is 1 at 9 am 1 at 3 pm 1 at 9 pm the best nights sleep for years and now I have started to get augmentation I went back to the neurologist in April and told her I am in augmentation and she replied yes then I will have to look in to this I had a letter this week to say try Diazepam or clonazepam or re.challenge him with pregabalin reading about it I will ask the doctor if I could go on them that don't seem to give you augmentation I will have to come off pramipexole very slowly is that right thanks take care HENSHAW 241241
I feel for you Jools. This has been me until this week when the prami has worked and let me sleep almost all night. I was up every hr pacing it's exhausting then I was also suffering with dizziness all day and trying to nap everyday to get some sleep. I am taking the sleep while the prami is letting me as I don't think it will last. I am sending my sleep thoughts to you and hope you get some good sleep really soon. x
Thanks Elisse. Thurs night was relatively good. I managed 3 sessions of 2 hours. It was bliss. Last night, RLS came back with a vengeance. I didn't eat or drink anything different so no idea why. Got up at 5am rather than try to sleep. I'll go back to bed later and try to catch up.
I'll have some better nights, I'm sure.
So pleased you are sleeping and I'll be sending all my positive thoughts to you to make it last.
Take care Elisse
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