lyrica vs neurontin

Debs,

I am lucky that my sensory problems are to the numb side of the scale and not additional pains. My neurologist does not think anyone should be in pain and has always been very proactive in medicating my discomfort even though my CIDP is mostly physical symptoms.

I have steadily increased my neurontin dosage as I decreased my prednisone. I know I won’t ever be “well” but I am making incremental progress with my motor skills. As I become more active I have had problems with pain at night. Last year my neurologist added nortyptiline to help with that; plus it is an antidepressant and that has helped tremendously too.

I am at 3200 mg neurontin a day and my neurologist is not happy to take it higher (I did not ask him why). So I am phasing in Lyrica and will be taking 150mg lyrica and 1600mg neurontin as well as the 50mg nortryptiline daily. I have only taken two 75mg bedtime lyrica so far and honestly think the foot “burning” and leg twitching have diminished at night (ya gotta love the placebo effect).

Unfortunately the daytime “fuzzy” hands and legs that led to this thread are still pestering me. I assume that better medication for getting a better night’s sleep is supposed to take care of the problem.

I did a search of the forum and see that most folks here think lyrica is just a more expensive version of neurontin. My local pharmacist said I probably couldn’t afford it without my insurance. (Right now I am using a sample bottle from the doctor’s office.) I assume it is more powerful since 150mg of lyrica is going to replace 1600mg of neurontin for me. And the nurse, who doesn’t make any money off the pills, specifically said that lyrica was better for sensory symptoms than neurontin.

By the way, a specific side effect of Lyrica is weight gain. Just what I needed on top of the prednisone humps and lumps.
Fluffily,
Flossie