Effect / Non-effect
Gabapentin (Neurontin)
Citation:   Nemos. "Effect / Non-effect: An Experience with Gabapentin (Neurontin) (exp96389)". Erowid.org. Aug 8, 2012. erowid.org/exp/96389

 
DOSE:
  oral Pharms - Gabapentin (pill / tablet)
BODY WEIGHT: 145 lb
To start of, my introduction to Gabapentin was as a prescription medication for nerve pain following some serious injuries to my hands that required surgeries. I had a prescription for the Gabapentin and also for Oxycodone (pure 5mg).

As far as medical use, it seems to have had a slight to moderately effective role (incomparably better than advil or ibuprofin could be) but worse than oxycodone, though this may be from the positive experience of the drug more so than from a much greater pain relieving effect. It is hard to differentiate for several reasons that I think I can speculatively provide, a) one primary method that one uses to differentiate between the effectiveness of a pain killer is how well one can complete everyday tasks after having taken it, how well one can get to sleep etc. (it would be hard to differentiate between the reduced pain and euphoric state - unless we consider the latter a pain reduction as well; the part b of this would be that no you cannot ignore the euphoric aspect of the drug and concentrate on how much pain you feel, because concentrating on the pain modifies the sensation and is a non-neutral observation state [the neutral observation state I shall call retrospection]).

To return to medical facts, it takes a few days for the pain relieving aspect to work, it does cause drowsiness, but I seemed to adapt to this after prolonged use (it no longer induces sleep but still induces a kind of tired sleep-wanting state - not very great).

Finally my only serious impressions of Gabapentin occurred at a point when I ran out of oxycodone (and had a few days to go till my next doctor's visit to get another prescription). The occasion I should foreword by saying that due to my hand injuries I couldn't work for several months, had to relocate for treatment and had a number of major changes occur in my life that caused a serious bout of depression - which I have always struggled with throughout my life but also always won over (naturally and without the aid of any substances or drugs, minus the rare use of psychedelics for introspective and entheogenic purposes).

At any rate at this point, for 3-4 days, I took 2-3 pills a day rather than the normal 300mg single pill dose, my depression grew worse, very much so, I laid on the couch without rising and contemplated how long of one doing nothing and maintaining none of their life principles do they become undisputed trash. Of course one can widdle away, hide from the fact for the rest of their life and still manage to pass it away joking and smiling, but I wouldn't accept it like that. So I really wondered when, if I had lost the strength or will for all of my moral imperatives, I would execute the only remaining imperative (just raw honesty provides that one always has the strength for this) of taking the open eyed, freely chosen, man's way out.

I'm alive as you might imagine from reading this and I did some more reading on Gabapentin (which I really should have done right away), and I should say it wasn't difficult to find the part for its potential side effects being depression/or the extenuation of I forget which, and possible suicidal ideation. Was Gabapentin responsible? Most certainly not. Could it have played a role in taking me closer to the brink than I otherwise would have come? It is very likely, so this is a strongly advisory cautionary note.

I stopped taking Gabapentin after those 3-4 days (I must have suspected something since I had taken it at a low dose for a number of weeks before upping to 2-3 tablets a day). The pain relieving effect of solely Gabapentin was alright by the way, not as good as oxycodone I would suggest (though they do seem to synergize well together - and in this fashion make good sense - because oxycodone is not a drug you necessarily want to be taking a lot of - even if it is good).

A month or so after I still had a bunch of Gabapentin left over (I didn't even take one a day afterwards), and since I saw so many reports on here, gave it a try as a recreational substance. Over the course of one day I took 3 doses of 1.2, 1.5 and 1.2 grams each, the first dose was 2 inhaled and 2 orally (you really don't want this stuff in your nose all that much, I've tried things that burn worse, but still it ain't exactly pleasant), next 1 inhaled 4 oral, 1 inhaled 3 oral. On the next day I took 1.8 1 inhaled, 5 oral. All four times, I got as near to absolutely no effect as I could lay claim to, within the ability of my perceptual discrepancy. (There was nearly no pain relieving effect - again it needs to be in the system longer for this, there was no really strong drowsiness as with my first experience of it - again I had grown adapted, and there was no other effect of any kind of note).

[Reported Dose: 300mg and 1.5-3g on several occasions]

Exp Year: 2010ExpID: 96389
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Aug 8, 2012Views: 17,681
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Pharms - Gabapentin (183) : Medical Use (47), Retrospective / Summary (11), Alone (16)

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