Posted by Rathrbfishn on June 9, 2002, at 7:36:19
In reply to Re: what's happening to my mind » Rathrbfishn, posted by JohnX2 on June 9, 2002, at 1:56:56
John...I took 300mgs of neurontin TID. I was also taking xanax. The negative feelings I described from neurontin happened for me as soon as I titrated from 600mgs/day to 900mgs/day, approximately 4 days after initiation of therapy. I stayed with the drug for over 2 months at 900mgs/day. I had never experienced, admittedly subjectively, paranoia in my life until I started this drug. Three days after initiation of the drug I could no longer do homework as I couldn't remember the lesson from that days class, nor could I follow the info in the text book.
At this point, I admit that my experience was not typical of the drug. But it is still a somewhat new drug and although I see few posts about it that dicuss it's drawbacks, they are beginning to appear. The pdoc I refered to that told me neurontin was a joke was a friend I grew up with and called to ask his opinion because I was having the problems with it I was and not seeing anyone else have them.
I have since seen a few other doctors on the net discuss their dissapointment with the drug, especially it's supposed anxiolitic effects. It may turn out to be a great drug, but I am very skeptical of all these new drugs being used off label to increase market share based on what is happening with the ssri's. Virtually everyone of the ssri manufacturers are being sued based on negative data they did not report to the FDA in trials before they were approved for depression. There is no question that the ssri's have a place in medicine and many people have good responses to them, but now the net is overwhelmed with horrible withdrawal experiences when people try to get off them. I'm wondering what is going to be the outcome of neurontin in 5+ years. When the ssri's first came out I gave them all trials and suffered from each. At that time my pdoc thought I was nuts, he now admits that there is a subset of people who have all kinds of problems with them, similar to the problems I had. So I am very skeptical of neurontin and any other new drug for that matter, especially the anti-convulsants being used off label as bi-polar and anti-anxiety meds. Keppra is now being touted as useful in OCD. What it is really all about is the drug co. are looking to increase market share to increase profits, hoping, not knowing, that down the line these drugs don't show up to have similar problems akin to the ssri's. The drug co. don't do long term studies before submitting new drugs for approval, they leave that to the patients who use them after they are approved, and I think that is bad science and bad medicine. If you think that pharmaceutical co have patients best interest in mind when marketing new drugs you are terribly naive. It's all about money these days.
poster:Rathrbfishn
thread:109206
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020609/msgs/109248.html