Day 3 of Pregabalin

[cicek]

I have just started taking 50mg per night of Pregabalin. It was suggested I increased the dose by 25mg per evening (thanks for your help Sue) but I only have 50mg capsules. I also know I could ask the GP for extra 25mg pills but he has already given me 2 months supply of 50mg so I fear he might not agree. Is it OK after around a week to up by another 50mg? I am on my last two weeks of 25mg Roprinirole.

[LotteM]

If you discussed that with your doctor and if there is nothing against it, then why not? I have seen starting doses of 75mg and only 25mg for older people. Try and see. At 100mg you are still on a somewhat lowish dose, mean effective dose of pregabalin for RLS is 125mg, I think.

As you are still tapering the ropinirole, the effectivity of te pregabalin will be hard to assess. I do hope it helps at least somewhat. Go slow on your last ropinirole steps. Can you cut the 25mg pill?

And keep it up. As many people have experienced, it will get better a while after your last ropinirole dose.

[Hidden in reply to LotteM]

Hi LotteM, from what I have read, I understand the mean effective dose for pregabalin to be around 300mg.

This from a 2010 study by Garcia-Borreguero et al.

"The mean effective dose of pregabalin at the end of treatment was 322.50 mg/day (±98.77), although therapeutic effects were already seen at a mean dose of 139 mg/day"

[LotteM in reply to Hidden]

Thanks for the correction, Amrob.

[SueJohnson in reply to Hidden]

300 mg of pregabalin would be equivalent to 1800 mg of gabapentin which I doubt seriously is the mean effective dose although it might have been for that study. That is a higher dose than most people need, although certainly some people need it and even higher amounts up to twice that. I believe amounts of 150 mg - 200 mg of pregabalin are more likely the amounts most people need. I may be wrong and Joolsg and Effindoe would probably know. And each person is different in what they need.

[Hidden in reply to SueJohnson]

If you refer to the literature, you’ll see that 300mg has been established as the mean effective dose. The term “mean” essentially means "average", so the mean effective dose is the dose that is most effective for most people.

[SueJohnson in reply to Hidden]

According to the Mayo Clinic report: "Most RLS patients require 1200 to 1800 mg of gabapentin daily" That would not result in a mean, or average of 1800 mg.

[cicek in reply to LotteM]

Thank you. I am nearly 74 and I think that is probably why he gave me a starting dose of 50mg. He didn't know how much to increase it each time but gave me enough meds to do it anyway. I didn't even think about 25mg doses because I don't know anything about it either. Neither did I realise it was going to capsules that can't be cut! I will speak to my pharmacist tomorrow but failing that I will wait a week and increase it by another 50mg. I have one week left of taking .25mg Roprinirole but as you suggest, I can cut these so will probably do that and reduce by half. This will be a very minimum dose. Can't wait to get some relief from anything now as it's been weeks of RLS every day from middle of the afternoon. Just want to sit and watch a Christmas film on TV 😂😂