Thankful for this forum

[BigAdam]

Hello Everyone. I found this forum about a week and a half ago. I did a google search on side effects for Gabapentin and thankfully stumbled across this in the search results. I haven't posted much but have looked through a few of the topics relevant to me and they've been very helpful.

I've had RLS for about 6 years and began taking medication three years ago. I was hesitant to take any medicine and wanted to deal with it naturally, but when it got up to 2-3 nights per week, I gave in and let my doctor write me a prescription. Unfortunately, I wasn't very educated about RLS at that point and neither was my doctor, because he prescribed me Pramipexole. I know now that was a big mistake, but thankfully it was a .25mg dose, and I never went higher than that.

Fast forward to a month ago: I knew about augmentation and read that Gabapentin tends not to augment the symptoms the way Pramipexole does. I asked my doctor (not the one that originally gave me Pram) about switching over and he was all for it. I started with 100mg and titrated up and was very disheartened to find that it had almost no effect, even at 900mg. I thought I'd need to switch back to Pram. HOWEVER, upon finding this forum I found some topics discussing Gabapentin and learned that A) it often takes a few weeks to start working and B) The augmentation effects of Pramipexole take a while to wear off, so you might not know if the Gabapentin is working until you've been off Pram for at least a week.

I've stuck with the Gabapentin and haven't increased the dose above 900. I still need to give it some time, but already I've noticed the symptoms getting a little better. I was waking up 2-3 times a night at first. The past two nights I've only awakened once and was able to get rid of the symptoms with a Hot/Cold shower.

This ended up a bit longer than I intended but the point is, thank you to those who have given advice and information. I now have hope for a long-term solution and not the band-aid of a dopamine agonist that slowly makes the symptoms worse.

[Joolsg]

Delighted the gabapentin is helping. It takes 3 weeks to become fully effective and withdrawal from pramipexole can last months so there’s still time for improvement.

You may notice more improvement if you raise your serum ferritin above 100 & avoid any triggers like anti histamines, anti depressants & cough /cold meds.

Hope you have a restful Christmas.

[BigAdam in reply to Joolsg]

Thanks! I didn't know that cough and cold meds could make RLS worse. Thankfully, I am not on any anti depressants or anti histamines. I intend to get a serum ferritin test soon. That recommendation is another helpful aspect of this forum. I knew that iron was related to RLS, but the pinned post gave me a much better understanding.

[hoooray]

I've just found this forum as well - so much to read etc... think I'll be on here all day! Like you I'm thankful for it!!!

[WideBody]

This is an excellent forum. I was so happy I found it. The information is spot on.

I just wanted to add, that for me, I needed to start taking gabapentin at noon. Not just evening, pre-bed. I took 1200-1500 a day, which became annoying, 12, 3, 6... You get the idea. Plus, if I missed one, catching up was not so easy.

My solution was to move to pregabalin. I take two, one at 2 and one at 6. Plus if I forget, it take about 45 minutes to an hour to "take the edge off". If you have RLS you know that means, it turns the buzzing/static down.