Hello all, i have chronic back/nerve pain in my legs due to a SCI from a burst fracture. You could call me a walking SCI. I have taken neurontin and i don't like it, i am also withdrawing from ultram (24 days now!) I think i need something for the nerve pain and the doctor mentioned lyrica and so i googled it and found out it is controlled? but i haven't seen any reports here about anyone getting hooked on it. Just wondering if it is addicting, addiction sucks (and i also think dependancy sucks, just me) anyone?

Thanks!

anything that is Rxed is considered a 'contolled substance as it IS controlled in its dispesing merely as it requires an Rx to actually obtain it.so that in itself,really means nothing.

the type of med that lyrica is,is an anti siezure med like the neurontin you were on.it has the same mode of action but has a different med make up,just like totamax or gabitril they all do the same thing but do it by using different base meds.I too suffer from very severe pain both neuropathic and structural/mechanical from a direct spinal cord injury and a couple of other medical problems thrown in just because.i am in the process right now of doing my taper off of the gabitril and will be starting the lyrica myself,by thursday,according to my current taper schedule.

If you scroll on down to the pain boards there are quite a few different threads going there right now just on lyrica alone.I think you would find these very helpful.glad to see you are off the ultram.really good idea there as this med can cause all kinds of various problems as i am sure you have found out the hard way?

I have done alot of research on Lyrica and really do have some hope that it may actually help with my central pain and RSD pain syndromes whcih resulted from my spinal cord injuries.you just have to keep trying the various anti siezure options out there til you find the right one for you.i had some really good luck with the gabitril but it just made me sooo fatigued that I just could not tolerate it during the day at all,i was a walking zombie,even after actually being on it for over two years.that particular side effect just never went away.sooo onto the lyrica.

unfortunetly neuropathic pain is one of the very hardest to try and control as you are not actually treating a real source of a pain(like with an actual injured area?) but the ingrained memory of it ,or some mutated crap that came from just the nerve damage itself.i do wish you luck with the lyrica,i am hoping that it can offer me some little bit of relief from the horrid ongoing agony in my leg and my arm over my shoulder blades.good luck,and let me know how it goes for you.Marcia

I've been a chronic pain patient for 12 years. For most of that time my pain was managed by Klonopin (clonazepam) and several other drugs. Klonopin did a pretty good job, but I developed a tolerance to it. My pain management doctor ordered me to taper off of it, but didn't provide me with enough Klonopin to do it safely. I suffered a withdrawal seizure and developed Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Syndrome. Now I am dealing with not only chronic pain, unmedicated, but the debilitating symptoms of BWS.

Recently I was taking 2400 mg of Neurontin (gabapentin) daily, but I didn't really know if it was providing me any benefit or not. My neurologist was concerned about the high dosage, so he had me taper down to 900 mg daily. I got much worse, so apparently the Neurontin was doing more than I realized.

I reported this to my neurologist and asked if Lyrica (pregabalin) might not be a better alternative. My reasoning was that Lyrica, which is from the same family as Neurontin, is far more bioavailable, so more benefit can be achieved with substantially less milligrams per dose. He immediately nixed this idea, informing me that Lyrica was a Class 2 controlled substance and not appropriate for me due to my history with Klonopin. (Yes, I read above where it says Lyrica is a Class 5, not a Class 2.)

So I got online and read what I could find about the addictive potential of Lyrica. What I found out was this: Because Neurontin's FDA approval wasn't for pain control, it wasn't subject to the same scrutiny that Lyrica received. In all liklihood, Lyrica is no more (or no less) addictive than Neurontin.

Should I continue to try to make a case for Lyrica to my doctor? Should I be worried about the Neurontin? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Additional note: I can't tolerate Gabitril (tiagabine), a drug from the same family as Lyrica and Neurontin.