Posted by Ritch on May 6, 2005, at 12:31:04
In reply to Neurontin effective monotherapy for bipolar?, posted by Nickengland on May 6, 2005, at 11:19:24
> Just wondering what peoples thoughts and experiences on Neurontin/gabapentin as monotherapy are for bipolar..
>
> Is it effective basically long-term as theres seems to be alot of controversial information about it, especially that the company lied about its "off label" uses.
>
> However it seems clear from this board that people with bipolar are still using it "off label"
>
> So whats the story..does it work?
As far as my experiences go, I was on Neurontin + Clonazepam + Effexor (all low dose) for about a year and a half and I didn't have any major spinouts while on it. However, after lots of tinkering with gabapentin with other combos, it definitely seems to precipitate some hypomanic symptoms in me. Without the clonazepam being present I might have had a clear manic episode while on it. That said however,.. I've found that it can "switch" me out of a bad depressive funk (just taking it for 2-3 days i.e.), kind of like an emergency measure that I know will work. It definitely will improve my sleep despite everything. Gabapentin has been tested in acute mania and it flopped (but then Lamictal hasn't been shown to work for acute mania either from what I understand). Overall, I think it might be worthy as an *addon* for anxiety/sleep maybe depressive symptoms, but I think it doesn't have much of a track record to support using it as a monotherapy for bipolar. It's a strange med and people react differently to it, not to say that you may find some bipolars actually find they can do monotherapy with gabapentin (but I think that would be a small minority).
poster:Ritch
thread:494520
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050504/msgs/494543.html