Gralise

[Camry2020]

I've been put on what I believe is a new drug Gralise, (high dose gabapentin 1800 mg daily) but was on gabapentin years ago until augmentation set in. Does anyone know anything about Gralise?? It's insanely expensive....about $1000 er month. So far I've been given samples.

[Hidden]

It's a slow release version of gabapentin, primarily used for nerve pain rather than RLS.

Horizant, gabapentin enacarbil is more popular for RLS. However, I believe that's expensive too.

Was the augmentation you experienced previously due to gabapentin, or more likely, the Mirapex?

[SueJohnson]

If your insurance doesn't cover it, there are coupons available to reduce the cost. Search on the internet for them.

[Tanker1]

As Manerva said Gralise is a slow release version of gabapentin. I found it expensive and of no additional help beyond the much more affordable gabapentin. My sleep doc had me on 900-1200 mg gabapentin with 300 mg of gralise. His rationale was that the slow release would carry me through the night whereas gabapentin concentrations decrease more quickly.

My previous insurance (USA based) partially paid for gralise but it was expensive but nothing close to $1000/mo. I signed up for medicare last December and my new insurance won't cover it saying it has not been approved for RLS/PLM. They also won't cover Horizant which is approved. Horizant is even more outrageously expensive. Its highly annoying that there are coupons and price breaks for those not on medicare but since I'm on medicare I can't use them even though the medicare drug plans won't cover either gralise or horizant. Just another example of the poorest most messed up health care system in the developed countries.

In any case, I had to switch back to just gabapentin (1200-1800 mg/day). I take 600 mg at 8:00 pm, 600 at 10:00 pm and if I still have symptoms another 300-600 mg at 11:00-12:00pm. The staged dosing spreads out the dose in time and also provides greater uptake in the intestines. More gabapentin at the same time just reduces the uptake efficiency. This has worked well as my symptoms are highly circadian and I rarely have symptoms in the morning.

PS: Gralise is not terribly new. It was first approved in the US in January 2011 and the last patent expires in Feb 2024. I have no idea if this could lead to a more sanely priced generic version.