Pregabalin for Anxiety

[hsamantha]

Hi,
Has anyone been prescribed Pregabalin for Anxiety?

What was your experience like when first taking it and then once taking it for a while?

TIA

Yeah, Venlafaxine did it for me.🤞🏻

Im angry that l was misdiagnosed as ‘awkward’ or ‘imagining my symptoms’ l had a classic one where they kept raising the dose until l was in a total mess.

Don’t let anyone do it to you x

Every drug prescribed for MH issues is “addictive”, as are most painkillers. It’s called a tolerance though, not addiction.

My Psych gave it to me after seeing the extensive list of drugs I’d been given, along with me having Serotonin Syndrome that was Dx after I landed in A&E and ended up in hospital for a week and almost died. If anything, it’s under diagnosed because most Doctors don’t know what the fuck it is, despite the fact it can be fatal and is more common than people think.

I had the high doses straight off the bat for a variety of reasons, but only stayed on them for a few months whilst I levelled off. Successfully lowered the dose to one that both controls my anxiety and doesn’t have any nasty side effects.

CBT is nothing but gaslighting yourself and EMDR is not recommended for multiple traumatic events/stacked trauma and my Psych has seen EMDR make patients even worse, as have my friends who are MH nurses.

Suggesting therapy over meds to someone who hasn’t left the house for years is ridiculous, gaslighting, and frankly, uninformed.

Clinical anxiety/agoraphobia that needs Psych treatment is not even close to the same as most of the anxiety posts I see on here/people talk about in RL. It is your brain in permanent fight/flight mode and it doesn’t know how to switch it off.

@WeAreAllDead

You are absolutely spot on with everything you've said.

My anxiety has taken all of my life outside of my front door away from me.

Every drug prescribed for MH issues is “addictive”, as are most painkillers. It’s called a tolerance though, not addiction.

Benzodiazepines and pregabalin and gabapentin are all controlled drugs (Class C) and classic drugs of abuse. You’re not likely to go looking online for another pack of sertaline. The reason people like these drugs so much is because they’re instant. They also create problems on their own and eventually bigger doses are needed to remedy the anxiety. They’re not a solution.

CBT is definitely not gaslighting either. It’s looking at the content of your thoughts and challenging them with reality. If anything, anxiety is what gaslights you. Most people with agoraphobia (myself included) know our thoughts are irrational and need help to identify which type of thought we’re having when we are panicking (catastrophising, fortune telling, black and white thinking) and the structure allows us to build up via behavioural experiments to get outside even if it’s just to the top of the road.

Medication alone is definitely not the answer to severe anxiety of agoraphobia. Medication can give you the ability to start engaging in therapy to understand why your anxiety is there and how to work alongside anxiety.

@Queeenyy I agree with a lot of what you said re cbt. For me I needed both. Pregablin gave my brain the space it needed to implement the things I'd learned and to look at my thoughts. Without the pregablin however I would never have been able to do that.

I've never needed bigger and bigger doses to keep my anxiety in check. I've remained on the same dose for years. I still get anxiety but judging by what others say it's a more 'normal' level of anxiety and not one that is crippling. The pregablin at this dose has worked well for me for a long time.

I have had private and NHS CBT and it's given me the understanding of my anxiety and my panic. It's learning to allow the panic and symptoms and not resist them.

However this is easier said than done, I've done exposures, absolutely crippled with anticipatory anxiety and panic symptoms whilst I'm out. It's been a long 3 year ride and whilst I've achieved going for a walk, going to the corner shop, going to a supermarket. Its an absolute battle to do it and it does get better but then it just takes one massive panic attack that's terrifying to set me back into retreating.

I'm just exhausted by it all and now at the point that something has to give, I need a medication that will work alongside the exposures, as doing them alone is just not giving me any quality of life.

@hsamantha have you come across the book the body keeps the score? I found it very helpful as it really sets out how it’s a physical/biological response.

@Cavviesarethebest

Hi, yes I've got the Anxiety rx book, The Anxious Truth book and I think I have a really good understanding of what is happening with my mind and body.

I've tried methods of feeling my way out of panic and anxiety.

I just now feel like the battle is just not getting any easier, I'm waking about an hour after going to sleep in panic, the other night my instructive thoughts were out of control, I was thinking about the knives in the kitchen draw. This really scared me.

I just want my old life back when anxiety arose is normal situations, not waking me out of my sleep

yep it’s a fucker

im 46 have had years of every type of therapy going and I still wake up in a panic. I currently can’t walk well because my back is so tense.

i would say that I am actually a lot better than I’ve ever been - but the change is very gradual and hard to notice

o don’t really have any advice only sympathy.

my dog is actually on pregablin for pain and he’s pretty chilled 😁

@Cavviesarethebest

You have my sympathy too, it feels like a form of torture.

Aw bless your dog, he sounds like he's got the life 😁

Who mentioned pregabalin to you? Was it your GP?

@Queeenyy

I found it under the NICE guidelines

I'm a specialist addictions nurse. You are absolutely wrong to compare gabapentinoids to "other" mental health medications in terms of how addictive they are. They are incredibly addictive, hence why addictions services are now treating people who use them in the same way we might have treat heroin or crack cocaine users in the past. That's not to say everyone will become addicted (though will certainly develop tolerance), but it's a huge risk factor, and being ignorant to this is foolish. There are whole communities of people who consider themselves to have experienced "prescribed harm" from doctors prescribing them gabapentinoids and benzodiazepines without making them fully aware of the risk.

Check out the latest data around annual drug deaths in this country. The figures related to pregablin arr the highest ever and are climbing rapidly. That's because these drugs work effectively and people chase that feeling. As someone who has cared for people trying to detox off of these drugs, I'd avoid them like the plague. Suggesting therapy to deal with the root of the problem, rather than medicating symptoms is EXACTLY what a good MH professional would do. Of course there is a huge place for medication alongside this, but if anything, hopefully this thread will have prompted the OP to ask her prescriber to discuss risk so that she doesn't find herself in a hellish, unanticipated situation further down the line

@Restlessinthenorth

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Yeah I've read lots of scary stories on addiction to this drug, also benzos.

I was prescribed benzos 3 years ago. 2mg tablets as and when needed. I probably take 1 or 2, 2mg tablet every 6 months, if I have to go out somewhere.

I think I'm a very responsible person, I've never even been drunk in my life, and I'm 40, it's just never interested me.

I've spent around 1k on private therapy and receiving NHS therapy, read countless books, its helping me understand the disorder but not overcome it. I really need something that's going to work for anxiety, I'm not depressed at all, I am fully functioning within the home, looking after 2 kids, working from home, but I need my life back, anxiety had got its grasp round me and has made my life so small

@hsamantha I wish you well in your journey. Sounds so tough. It also sounds like you are doing all the right things to make an informed decision. I hope whoever prescribes to you does so with . a good plan for monitoring and support

Be careful with pregabalin. I was prescribed it by a gp for nerve pain who was very blasé and said "no side effects to worry about". I did some research before taking it and decided to bin it. Absolutely shocking they dole out this stuff as if they are sweets. Read this before you take it.

I’m well aware of all of this. My point is that those stats are for people who haven’t been prescribed them - they’re buying them illegally, and probably don’t have “just” whatever they think they’re buying in them, it doesn’t state if they were ever prescribed them/what dose/how long for, and the general consensus is that they’re being bought illegally as they’re cheaper than other street drugs.

The only feeling I got/get from them is that of almost zero anxiety (because a certain amount of anxiety is normal, right? Like when you have to move house and you don’t know if DCs will get a school place/if they’ll settle in well, for example) and being able to leave my house, go back to work, do well at my job, be a better parent.

I didn’t get any of the recreational feelings from them.

I have an alcoholic, coke addict mother who has never been sober, an alcoholic sister who’s also never been sober in her adult life and a brother who smoked weed/drank so much he ended up with psychosis. Fortunately, he landed on his feet in an amazing supported living place (that doesn’t exist now, that I campaigned hard against the closure of as it gave my brother his life back), and has been sober for just shy of a decade.

I’m very familiar with addiction, it destroyed my formative years and a good chunk of my adult life.

I’ve also spent thousands on private therapy (and fuck me it was hard to find properly qualified people and the amount out there these days that aren’t is frightening), and it was very much worth in the sense that I have managed to break the cycle for my own children, they aren’t growing up with an addict mother who abuses them in multiple ways (I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve had a drink in my life and I’ve never touched illegal drugs), it did a lot for my sense of self worth/negative self talk etc.

But it wasn’t helping the nigh on permanent fight/flight/freeze/other Fs mode my brain was stuck in, and I became agoraphobic, which wasn’t acceptable for my children’s quality of life. Taking those meds wasn’t a decision I took lightly.

What about all the people who have posted on here about how pregabalin has helped them? Do you not think your rather extreme post has the potential to cause them to worry? This is a medicine that has been around for many years and helped a lot of people. All medicines can have unwanted effects (as you obviously know).

@sorrynotathome and @WeAreAllDead I'm sorry you have both found my post difficult. It is a factual account of my experience of working with people who have used this drug. Unfortunately, contrary to your post I assure you that I have also worked with numerous people who were prescribed the drug rather than having bought it illicitly, who have gone on to develop an addiction. I have seen people experience hell when trying to have a controlled withdrawal from the drug, and also to then go on to buy illicitly when the prescribers hasn't upped the dose or their tolerance has increased and they have found the maximum dose insufficient after a length of time. If you really believe that people who are prescribed certain medications don't go on to use them in dangerous ways against prescriber advice, you are very much wrong.

At no point did I tell the OP not to have the medication if she so chooses (though ask why she is having to go private to buy it....most psychiatrists I know are extremely reluctant to prescribe it). I just advised that she made herself fully aware of the risks. As a previous poster shred, some medics don't fully explain the risks hence why some people feel that their lives have literally been ruined by this medication. You don't and that's great for you, but it doesn't mean I should censor my clinical experience on a post discussing this medication

It was the first medication my Psych suggested and I’d never heard of it until then.

Unfortunately a lot of drugs end up in dependency. Pregabalin is used in many different setting, not just psychiatric.

I too worked in addictions and many different drugs get abused. It's not only the effect of the drugs but also the availability.

For many who end up taking pregablin it is often a last resort. As rightly pointed out, it's no longer a drug that is readily prescribed due to its propensity for abuse.

That being said, many, myself included end up on drugs like these because they are out of options. A life of constant fear is not a good one, especially when your feelings impact others like your children.

I don't imagine many people end up on this drug, that is difficult to get in the first place without exhausting all other options first.

I do believe counseling, cbt etc have their place but equally does medication. Unless you have experienced the true fear that comes with extreme anxiety you have no idea.

It's important to educate yourself on all aspects of a medication you are taking. It's not helpful however to give an unbalanced view, only pointing out the negatives.

Like all drugs, there are pros and cons. To me it has given me my life back and given me a future. Everything else had been tried. Every single thing that most people take for granted like nipping to the shops, meeting friends for coffee, being employed, outings with their kids had been taken from me.

I went from someone with a professional job who dealt with multi disciplinary teams, clients, families all day to a very very small life of staying at home literally fearing the doorbell.

@Girlintheframe are you me?! Cos babe, SAME.

@Restlessinthenorth of course I will not deny your experience. However, as you are an addiction specialist, by definition all the people you care for have an addiction. You don’t see the ones for whom it has worked as planned.

@Restlessinthenorth

Funny how you didn't question why I paid for private therapy yet questioning why I would pay for a private psychatrist.
Because I will do anything to feel better, that's why.
If it wasn't for my children then the life I'm living would not be worth living.

Do me a favour, get off this thread, your questioning of my actions is doing nothing to help my mental health.