MERRY CHRISTMAS BUT NEED ADVICE HAVING A NIGHTMARE LATELY

[Netball-50]

Merry Christmas to all hope u all have a restless leg free time for some of the festivities.

I've had the worse few weeks at night lately I'm wondering if I'm augmenting? I've managed to wean down to 1 and a half tablets of 0.088 mg tablets been on this for a few month I am trying to wean off totally so I can take gabapentin doc has given me 100mg to start with. Do I have to come off prami totally before going on gabapentin?? I'm at a loss lately as legs have been a nightmare I'm hoping the gabapentin will work I've been taking codeine so I can get some sleep. Sorry to bore u all in Xmas day enjoy your day and thank you all for the advice over the past year u r sooo much better than the GPS I've seen!! merry Christmas all xxx

[YodaDog]

Hello Netball, sorry to hear about your troubles. I can't talk from experience of prami, but having read other peoples comments/questions and the responses they've received it seems there are two schools of thought from GPs regarding coming off dopamine agonists and going onto gaba - one is the patient has to come off the DA completely before going onto gaba, the other school of thought (which makes more sense to me) is that the patient starts the gaba whilst withdrawing off the DA. This makes more sense to me as I've heard it said that it takes about 3 weeks on average for the gaba to start working properly so if you have to come off the DA completely before starting the gaba you're going to have at least 3 weeks of hell. The other thing is that I've heard it said on here that 300mg of gaba is about the minimum that RLS sufferers need to see/feel relief from RLS symptoms. I take 900mg per day (3 x 300mg), but I do also take 2mg Neupro patch and 2mg ropinirole - I'm going to try and reduce my DA intake in the new year. Wishing you all the best.

[Joolsg]

I assume you are cutting down Pramipexole, as that comes in doses of 0.088mg. Withdrawal symptoms can last months and the RLS gets much worse before it settles down. You can start the gabapentin now and increase it slowly to the max dose of 900mg for RLS. It does take up to 3 weeks to become fully effective.

I hope the withdrawal is not too horrible. Merry Christmas to you.