Missed medication

[Sunri]

I take 400mg of Gabapentin each evening for rls, however I came away from home. without my medication last night. I had a very restless night but am going home later today when I will take the missed medication, it will be several hours before my regular dose is due. As it initially takes a while (several weeks) for Gabapentin to bring relief for rls why did missing last nights medication give me such a bad night.

[SueJohnson]

Because in effect you were withdrawing from it and that needs to be done very slowly to avoid withdrawal effects.

[Sunri in reply to SueJohnson]

Thanks Sue, I am surprised that withdrawal happened so quickly. Really unfair, takes ages for the medication to get in your system and work, yet few hours without it and it's back with a vengeance. That's life eh. Many thanks for responding.

[Munroist]

I was originally told that pregabalin (similar to gabapentin) built up its effect over several days but in fact it seemed to work pretty much instantaneously. There may be a bit of adjustment by the body or possibly the last 10-20% of effect which comes more slowly but I found most of the effect both increasing and decreasing happened pretty quickly. Given that standard advice on here is to take it in the evening rather than during the day so you have the maximum levels available at night, that would also indicate it takes effect very quickly. In general if you are changing your dose

I'd say it's good to leave days between changes in dose so you are really aware of the effect but my experience was that the effect is felt pretty quickly.

[amrob123 in reply to Munroist]

I agree, pregabalin worked straight away for me, and when I reduce my dose, always very slowly, I feel the effects within a day or two. I must admit, i don't fully understand the "build up in one's system" concept, especially for medications with a short half-life.

[MaxxRLS in reply to amrob123]

I think it’s more that the side-effects take a few weeks to settle rather than it takes a few weeks to take effect, that was my understanding. Like others I found it ‘worked’ for my RLS from day 1

Incidentally I was also suffering from fairly crippling anxiety and on occasional on/off spells of Lorazapam. Pregablin killed this dead and I haven’t felt the need for any anxiety medication since day 1 of Pregablin (been on 225mg at night for 4 months)

I did miss a day and the next day I felt very anxious (anxious stomach) and some RLS in the day (unusual for me)