usual dose of gabapentin not enough

[Frustrated-RLS]

After more than a year and a half of being on gabapentin (with good results) after coming off of ropinirole (4mg) my usual dose of gabapentin (1200 mg) isn’t working and I am waking up in the night with terrible RLS. I am (as I have always been) splitting the dose into two, taking gentle iron every other night, doing evening stretches, and watching triggers. It is hot in the U.K.and hay fever affects me badly, and I am taking allergy meds but they are the ones that gave me no trouble last year (Piritise and Pirinase—I have to take both).

When I wake up in the middle of the night, after another 300mg of gabapentin and a dose of ibuprofen, squats, stretching and walking for an hour or two, I can usually get back to sleep. But I would love to get back to where I was as even this is disruptive for work (I am 49 and sole provider for my family of four).

should I add the 300 mg of gabipentin that I am now taking at 2am and have it at 5 (with 600 at 7 and 9, and bed at 11) or is there another way I can go about this?

[SueJohnson]

Yes you can try that. If not you may need to add 100 mg to that 300 mg and take it at 5:00. Have you changed anything else - OTC supplements, food, etc?

[Madlegs1]

Your allergy tablets should be ok.

But do check for other triggers.

In this weather, it could be drinks with colourants, sweeteners or sugars. Ice cream and so on.

You will need to be forensic in your detective work.

Good luck.

[Simkin]

I went up to 2,100 dose of gabapentin and that still did not work.Now I am on oxycodone with 1,700 gabapentin and this far I have NO rls.

[Graham3196]

I used to have bad allergic reaction to something in the air most of the year. I underwent scratch tests that identified some grass seeds and others then I had desentisation and for the last 30 years my allergic symptoms have been been mild. An occasional sneeze or three. Wonderful relief. Recently a (new) doctor thought my RLS might be related to an allergy so we did another series of extensive scratch testing and I now have a small allergy to birch seeds. We have very few birch trees around here so I am very pleased with the original medical work. Not surprisingly we made no progress on the RLS front.

I live in Australia - a world leader in allergies and asthma so the same cure should work wonders in the UK