KeithEugeneW

Hi Mary,

I was on neurontin from December to April last year, with the increasing doses like you to step up to the level they wanted me on. I found that it helped a lot with the nerve pain in that I stopped having those horrible occipital headaches, but that it made me very foggy and forgetful, I gained 20 lbs, and that after a while I'd get used to the dosage and the pain would come back so they would continually up my dosage in response to that. I ended up at 2400mg/day, and finally made them put me on something else because I was having a hard time functioning at work. They put me on topamax and ultracet, but I quickly backed off and decided to just use the pills on my very worst days. A word of caution, when/if they take you off of neurontin, don't just quit taking it. My (resident) doctor told me I could just quit taking them as long as I was going to the topamax right away. He was wrong, I was sicker than a dog for almost a week going through the withdrawal. After a few days I consulted my pharmacist to see if the topamax or ultracet were making me so sick, and mentioned to him that they had me quit taking the neurontin and the dosage I was on. He couldn't believe they would not tell me I needed to step back down off the neurontin. So a word to the wise I guess.
As far as the artificial disc trials, I hope you get in the trial, but from what I understand you have to have only one bad level to qualify, they won't accept more than one that is bad. Maybe the rules have changed some, so don't take my word for it, definetely check it out.