Anyone tried Lyrica? Wondering about the addiction potential?

[solars]

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!

[feelbad]

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

[Leora]

Actually, I think Feelbad may have misunderstood the control issue with meds. The level of control is actually related to it's addiction potential as you guessed it is. There are 4 "schedules" of control. Sch 1 is highly addictive with little or no therapeutic value, like cocaine or heroine. Sch 2 is pure opiods(no tylenol mixed in) or highly addicting opiods, like codeine(alone) or percocet. Sch 3 is your hydro's, T'#3's, opoids mixed w/limiting agents(the tylenol is "supposed" to lesson our abuse of it, haa ha, we all know that only goes so far!) and sch 4 is less addicting things like ambien, stadol, some cough syrups. It's called controlled b/c the DEA controls their dispensing by keeping counts of who prescribes/dispenses it. Pharmacies and hospitals must count their stock at change of shift b/c if abuse potential.
So if Lyrica is controlled then it's got abuse potential. I don't know enough about it but I did read an ad and on the back it said it should not be given to people with a history of drug or alcohol abuse. I think that sums it up right there. I'm still gonna look into it though myself b/c I know that it's not true for everyone but I only have problems with my DOC, and can take others without abusing them, I don't know if that's the norm though. Good luck to you, if you do get relief from your nerve pain, pls let us know. Take care,
Leora

[feelbad]

there are actually 5 schedules and lyrica is listed as a schedule five non narcotic.i just looked on the DEA web site.the difference between the schedules and being a controlled substance are really ather confusing at best.from what i was reading,there appears to be some part of a particular 'drug" that has a potential more for harm than addiction/abuse.or part of the actual "chemical chain" that this particular med is made up of,wayy back at the beginning of that chemical chain,there was once some sort of a med that was related to some sort of a drug that had some kind of abuse/harm potential??they just don't really explain it all that well.

they actually have the list of controlled substances on this website that also include their schedule numbers as well,they include the narcotics and barbs and also things like anabolic steriods.it appears that what the controlled substances all have in common is that some part of them can cause harm in some way??i am not really sure.but it definitely does list lyrica as a schedule five with no actual abuse potential(thats what schedule five actually means),so I will have to actually look into this a bit deeper and see just whay lyrica is actually considered as a controlled substance while none of the other anti siezure meds are when they all basically work in the same way.

it does appear that certain derivatives,and things like salts,isomers,esters also play some part in this too.geez.like things arent bad enough.maybe i will just ask my pharmacist.

but the actual 'schedules" are what DO indicate the abuse potential and controlled substance is a totally different thing.i would just like to know for myself,what that is since I am starting this med on thursday once I taper off my gabitril.

when I looked up controlled substance in the online law dictionary all it states there is that it is basically 'any drug that has been declared by either federal or state law to be illegal for sale or use in the US but may be dispensed under physicians Rx.well geez,we know THATS not exactly true either since all illegal drugs are also controlled substances as well,even the schedule "I"s,like LSD.go figure.like I said its all a bit confusing.I just want to know what kind of anti siezure med I am taking.marcia

[feelbad]

Well,after going directly to the pfizer(the drug manufacturer)web site and reading thru alll of the fun and exiting in depth Rxing info on this med,I think I DID find the answer to the question.

bear with me here while I try and do a readers digest version on what i found,K?well it appears that when they were doing the drug trials on lyrica and keep in mind(and I don't know why in the heck all drugs are actually teated this way)that all of the drug trials were done using levels of the drug that were much much higher than what the normal Rxing dose would be for a given patient.they actually tested using 450mgs per dose at a time while the actual Rxing info states,for use in pain and not siezure control,only 100mgs per dose at a time and with the max amount for pain patients being around only 300mgs per day.

well,during the trials,if you are not really familiar in just how the info gets into the Rxing literature,when ever any of the test subjects report ANY possible symptom or adverse reaction,it HAS to be listed,but it goes on a scale from most frequent complaints to frequent to rare in nature.so if even one person stated something,its in the lit.soo it does appear that while testing in 5500 patients,that this recieved subjective ratings from some subjects as it giving feelings of (and some of the test subjests were recrecational drug users??go figure)"a good drug effect",'high' and 'liking to a degree of that was similar to diazipam(30mgs of).in the 5500 patients there was 4% who were actually given the lyrica and 1% of placebo treated pts who overall reported euphoria as an adverse event.

also in clinical studies ,following abrupt or rapid discontinuation of lyrica some pts reported symptoms of insomnia,nausea,headache or diarrhea,which is suggestive of physical dependancy(which can actually happen with any med that you are taking on a long term basis that needs tapering up and off like all of the other anti siezure meds so I dont understand this actually being an issue in itself?)

now it also states that lyrica is NOT known activate receptor sites associated with drugs of abuse,but as with any CNS acting med, physicians should carefully evaluate patients for history of drug abuse and observe them for any signs of possible lyrica abuse or misuse,such as development of tolerance(which happens with alot of different types of meds)dose escalation and any drug seeking behavior.

the max dose for pain patients should be 100mgs three times per day,doses above 300mgs a day is not reccomended.

sooo condidering that these tests were all done at an amazing dose of an actual 450mgs PER DOSE at a time,i do think some of these reported symptoms would not actually even be an issue here really,and the fact that even despite the the very "rare" occurance of what was reported as euphoria and the"good drug effect" and the "high',in very few pts in this study at a very high dosage at the time and the fact that the FDA is still sticking with the schedule 5 and not even going up to even a 4 with that info that was reported,i do think any real abuse potential is practically almost non existant or the FDA would have not let this 5 even be there.it would have most definitely demanded a change.

so I do belibve that the reason for the 'controlled' label is merely because of what happened during the drug trials with those few rare comments so they had to place that on this particular drug.

I have no probelm in actually taking this med at all.and actually am on day four of it with some actual reduction in the,what was before non stop constant swelling in my RSD knee,nothing had even touched that before,I am rather amazed with that already.we will just have to see how it goes.

but thats it in a nutshell.you can find the same info,in a very long version,just by going to pfizers website.at least we do have an explanation now so I thught i would let you guys know.hope it helps.Marcia