I have been having an increasingly difficult time controlling the pain over the past 4-5 months. I have been on Hydocodone (10-650) and Tegretol (400 mgs every 8 hours) since April or May. Pain has been a 7 at the lowest and 9 - 10 during the breakthrough times.
I was put on Gabapentin (Neurontin) 100 mgs 3 x day on Wednesday of last week. This was because the Hydrocodone and Tegretol both failed and I had been in 9-10 level pain non-stop for over a month. The first dose resulted in a complete disappearance of pain and a slight tremor to my right hand. By the fifth dose, my wife said I looked like I was in full Parkinson's. I was loosing feeling in both hands and both feet, my legs acted like they could not walk. I was becoming very agitated and the tremor had spread to the entire right side of the body and was starting to affect the left hand. It became difficult for me to process any information beyond simple tasks, and even then with some difficulty.
I stopped the neurontin and called the Neuro doctors answering service on Saturday morning. The P.A. agreed with my decision to sop the meds and suggested that I was metabolizing the meds too quickly. Since then, I am still pain free and most of the side effects have diminished or disappeared. I still have some tingling in my hands and feet and some residual tremor in my right hand.
I have an appointment in the am with the pain doc about the hydrocodone failing. She tried me on oxycodone previously when the hydrocodone (10-650) stopped working well. But all it did was intoxicate me and did not address the pain at all. I gave it back to her and asked to be put back on the Hydrocodone. I also have an appointment next week with a neurosurgeon to discuss surgical options. However, because the pain has stopped (I suspect that it has gone into a remission of some sort) I wonder if the neurosurgeon will be able to offer anything at all.
Has anyone else experience such side effects with Neurontin?