Pfizer’s Headache

I took neurontin for several years because of neuropathic pain along with baclofen. This was the only combined treatment that worked. My dosage was very small 300 per day but it worked for me. My concern and that of others on similar protocols is that in the legal war we may be the losers. In Florida it was withdrawn by insurance companies for off label uses and we as users were promptly declared placebo victims with no recourse....In the meantime who is watching insurance companies while they lead millions like lambs to the slaughter who felt that because they paid the premiums they were entitled to care without litigation?
Amy Price PhD

I would like to know how maney people lost part or all their balance while taking neurontin. Right after I started taking it for neuropthy pain and the DR. had it up to 3200mg's I lost most of my balance and still haven't regained it back.. I still have this suspicion that the neurontin is responsible for my terrible balance problem that continues after 5 years of being completly off of it.

I'd like to know if Neurontin has ever been tested as a sleep aid. Gabapentin has been prescribed for me as an aid in reaching the Delta wave level of sleep, 600 mg at bedtime, and it seems to help.

I'd like to know if Neurontin has ever been tested as a sleep aid. It has been prescribed for me to help me get down into Delta wave level of sleep, and seems to help me get more rest.

I have found neurontin ot be of some help with nerve damage assiciated with a knee surgery. I was also prescribed Lyrica which seemd to be less effective but did help with sleep. I am so concfused now and have such pain after surgery with some sort of nerve issue in addition to a Baker's cyst which I did not have previous to surgery. Andy ideas? I am 2 months out of arthoscopic surgery wwhich ohly lasted 8 mintues and I have been in severe pain where I cannot sleep after about teh first week of surgery.

Many thanks to the attorneys who hold drug companies feet to the fire.

Many thanks to the attorneys who hold drug companies feet to the fire.

I have been on a fairly high dose of Neurontin for 8 years. It has been a life-saver for me. Because of the pain and sensations I experience, even when I have missed a dose by a couple of hours, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have commited suicide by now. I even worry more about running out of it than I do the opiate that I take for the condition. I am not saying that there might not be problems with the way Pfizer handled the trials and reporting, but I can tell you by personal experince that IT DOES work for neuropathic pain. I would testify in any courtroom to its effectiveness; at least for my condition which resulted from a broken ankle after a fall at work.

I have just been prescribed Neurotin and have been on it for ten days. I have diabetes and was waking up nightly to horribly itchy burning feet. I had tried Lyrica in the past and although I liked the relief of symptoms I didn't like the total zombie it turned me into. My neurologist prescribed Neurontin and Requip in combination for my foot neuropathy and restless leg syndrome and I am actually able to sleep at night. YEAH! I hate taking six more pills every day but it HELPS and it is working!

In 1989 I had a radical hysterectomy for cancer. little did I know It would cause other problems. such as permanent nerve damage and neuralgia. I went to Doctors for 12 years with no results. All that time I took pain mediucation and it still didn't control my pain. I would lose 2 and 3 days every couple months to such severe pain that I would be in bed or the hospital;. One time I took 12 pain pills in a 13 hour period and still ended up in the hospital getting shot up with 50mg of demerol. I would end up in the hospital every 2 to 3 months because of hte pain. I got to be on a first name basis with the ER doctor. He would see me and shoot me up immediately and then we would run all kinds of tests. I finally switched to my husbands Doctor and we tried different things such as prozac and sertraline and others. we tried to go with out pain killers. It didn't work. He sent me to a pain management clinic where after the first visit they diagnosised me with neuralgia and started trigger point injections. They are supposed to last for 30 days, I could even make 3 weeks. After 3 tries we went to medications. no pain killers because I was tired of losing days of my life to them. We tried Neurontin and I was up to 15 capsules a day. I did this therapy for a couple of years when I saw a report about the Wellbutrin SR. I went to my doctor with it and we gradually weaned the neurontin down to one a day with one Wellbutrin a day. I did this for years. I am 51 and no longer take the medicine. I can say if it hadn't been for neurontin I dodn't know where I would be today. That drug saved me. The reason I went to my doctor is because I wanted to get away from taking so much medicine. I hate to take medicine. i never had a problem with the drug, but everyone is different. What works for one person doesn't work for everyone. I know that drug companies are devious and will do anything to get Doctors to use their product. I worked in pharmacies for over 20 years and saw first hand their lies and games. Anything for the bottom line. The sad part is that they hurt alot of people in the process.

I took Neurontin at the max dose for several years for idopathic prepherial neuropathy. It helped a little. I tried Lycria for a short time, no help. The most effective drug I have taken is Bupropian SR (Wellbutron) 150 mg twice a day. I've been taking it for 6 years and It has been a lifesaver for me.

Now I understand better what the fruits of dishonesty fed by profit maximization are. Needless agonizing suffering might have been avoided for me. I started to take this medicine for severe neuropathic pain and reached the therapeutic level of of 3600 mg/day. I gained a huge amount of weight, had cold sweats, and the pain got no better. Added to that was severe leg swelling for the first time in my life. I'm so fortunate my pain physicians believed me when I said it wasn't doing me any good. I tried Lyrica later and my leg swelling became permanent. It helped my pain very little and was close to $1,000 per month. The worst thing is that the time waiting for these meds to work meant months more waiting for adequate pain control. I wish my doctors had been informed earlier of the negative study results. It might have saved me from months of suffering in terrible pain.

Isuffered unbearable pain after a back injury. Iwas diagnosed,peripheral neuropathy I took Neurontin for several years, before generic gabapentin came on market.. Some times it works at keeping pain bearable,other times it doesnt work. I must have regular checkups, because it can cause kidney problems.
Should I be more concerned?

It is awfull to know that pfizer were misleading us about gabapentin. As a nurosurgeon I did believe their claims. and now we find they were not true. And I demand myself .With other medications do they do the same? Do other companies insert themselves in the same practices? Hard to answer, hard to believe in then anymore.

I suffer from chronic neuropathic pain due to a rare form of bone cancer I had ten years ago. I visited a pain clinic because I was desperate to get the pain under control and they told me Neurontin would be a very good solution. I should have taken a hint from the Neurontin advertisements plastered on their walls but I was really wanted to find some way of controlling the pain. They started me on a low dose and worked me up to a fairly high dose. They then told me to follow-up in a year. The side effects were awful. I became extremely anxious and would often break out into cold sweats. I did not completely realize that these side effects were due to the Neurontin until I stopped taking it and found that the symptoms disappeared. As for helping with the pain, I cannot say that it had any effect whatsoever.

I am a senior citizen and am taking several medications. Some time ago, because of all the bad publicity surrounding so many of the newer drugs, I now take the most effective of the older drugs and have found no difference in the effectiveness. I do not trust the drug companies to act in the patients' best interest and even believe that to sell their newer drugs, the drug companies will say or do anything. I have never asked my doctor about any drug advertised in the media and refuse to watch their commercials - always mute.

Wow ! I take 2400 mg of Gabapentin (Neurontin) daily for neuropathic pain. I guess it works (but I take other strong pain medications as well)... I'm really kinda confused and I don't want to take one more pil than is necessary.

My father died 1 month ago because they couldnt stop his seizure. It lasted for 6 days. He has no hx of seizure disorder.

As a nurse who watched patients participate in the original studies of many of the AIDS cocktail drugs in the early '90's, none of this information surprises me. When the urgency of politics and profits were thrown into the mix, the results were drugs rushed to market before we really knew what the long-term side effects were. Many suffered because of it.

Drug trials are performed on humans, by humans. Error is inevitable, even when unintentional.

Out right fraud and deception for the sole purpose of profits, however, is criminal. And when you have an industry that is based on profit first and health second, criminal acts are also inevitable.

It is time we took a hard look at the pharmaceutical industry. For starters, it is time to get drug advertising off television. (Remember - Pfizer is the company that brought us Viagra, and the spector of erectile dysfunction straight into our living rooms.)

Both Obama and McCain's health care proposals talk about reducing costs by relying more on evidence-based medicine. They - and the rest of us - may want to think long and hard about what that really means.