Chronic Pain Support Group

I tookLyrica for about a month and gained 12 pounds. I got off it, because I was gaining about a pound every couple of days. It made me crave sugar and lots of food. Not worth gaining weight for a medication that helped some, but not that much. Huge side effect, the weight gain.

Hey there,
I was on lyrica about 9 months ago. I was taking 75 mg twice a day. My psychiatrist thought it would help with my anxiety, as well as pain. I really don't think it did either. It's not surprising that it didn't do anything for my pain though, since my pain is not "neuropathic". (But don't all pain signals get sent through nerves?? I'm confused!) Anyway, I did not have ANY side effects from the drug - not one. I believe my dose was quite low, however.
With lots of caring,
Orchid

Lyrica did the same thing to me; my weight went up like crazy, which is its most common side effects. I switched from Lyrica to a combination of neurontin and topamax and the pounds just dropped off and I got the same pain relief. I was taking it primarily for nerve pain. For my back pain, I still take narcotics.

I had a doc that wanted to put me on Lyrica and as soon as I read all the side effects my hubby and I both said NO WAY to it. Glad I never went on it from what I am reading here.

Orchid - the article I read (if I find it I'll send you the link) basically said if you have an injury (cant remember if it mentioned a disease) said that when a part of your body is injured, we produces endorphines for the pain. when you take pain meds it, for lack of better word) the natural pain killers your body makes dont go to that area anymore and therefore your body maps around that area causing refered pain. They are testing new drugs at NIH to resolve this issue but I dont know when anything will be in clinical trials. It makes sense to me because all Docs I've had have told me that there are no such things as muscle relaxors. Anything labeled as suck works on your neuro system to relax your bosy. After being on many mrelaxors, the only thing that worked for me was direct shots of novacaine into the muscle and in the beginning I needed like 10-15 at a time, and after a few months of that with massage therapy, I only needed the shots when it got really really bad. So I dont know if you have to have a neuro problem for your body to re-map your pain control, but that's what every Doctor I've had tells me.


Sduke I dont know if you have tried accupunture, but that helped me tremendously. I can do 20 minutes of accupunture (of course with fibro I had a lot of needles all along my spine from the neck to the tup of my behind) but I got results the first time and didnt really need pain meds for about 5 days after. Problem was, insurance back then did pay for the procedure, and I'm still totally confused with medicare so I have to see if they approve it or not. Sorry so long winded but I cant sleep and am still fuming about my SSDI back pay. Please let us know what you decide to do. BJ

I was on Lyrica for very painful diabetic neuropathy. It actually helped pretty good w/ the pain. One VERY BAD side effect was that I lost vision in my left eye. It was definately caused by the Lyrica. My vision was gone for about 6 weeks. It came back little by little. Very scary. What really sucked was that it did help the pain!

Man I need to work on my spelling instead of spilling everything out so fast. How the heck can ya'll understand me?

one of the HUGE side effects of Lyrica is cravings and weight gain. I was on it for 6 days and could not continue because of the swelling in my legs and feet. I have lost over 150 pounds over the last 3+ years, I am NOT going to gain it back. Told my fibro doc no way I can't take this med, we have to go a different route. There are other drugs to help wtih pain.