I take it in combination with a muscle relaxant for my pinched nerves and it works alright for that. I also take medication for anxiety so I'm sure my results on anxiety in relation to gabapentin leave a cloudy unclear result in regards to anxiety. Talk to your doctor about replacing it with a drug specific to anxiety and if the nerves are no longer the issue you may find an anxiety med that works better. Blessing and peace to you.

I take it for fibromyalgia pain. It actually makes me tense. And people tend to gain weight on it. So if it were me, I wouldn't take it for anxiety.

Here's the way this medication worked for a while for me. I have fibromyalgia, post shingles pain now in remission, and I needed a combination treatment plan to cope with the physical sensations of nerve racking spasms spirals and explosions (these are descriptions of different pain experiences) and with the anxiety associated of trying to move without creating these pains.
The gabapentin worked to reduce the level of the physical sensation, the anti-depressant worked to reduce the chemical changes for anxiety and depression.
I am now off both medications, still coping with anxiety and depression using natural tools (staying hydrated, moving gently, and breathing exercises).
Best wishes.

Thanks for all the posts, I knew I could count on you. It is a difficult decision to blame the meds for something when you do have mental issues all of your life. This med did make me more tense and did give me suicidal thoughts like I have never had before. This place is great for informed decisions versus other web sites.

Good for you!

I'm interested in your post. I, too, take gabapentin for neuropathy due to nerve damage sustained by two original epidural shots given to me by the orthopedic group I was originally seeing, after suffering a long period of chronic pain from sciatica. Those shots did not help at all; they actually caused my pain to travel down to my foot! Then, they sent me to a pain clinic which proceeded to give me a series of epidural shots for several months in order to correct the pain. That did not work. I finally took my life into my own hands and saw a neurosurgeon who literally "fixed" me in a short and simple operation! I walked out of the hospital that very afternoon on my own - no walker! However, I began to have these "ghost pains" where my sciatica pain had traveled. They weren't really "painful," actually; rather, they were numbing sensations that caused me to lose my sense of feeling in my left leg. The neurosurgeon told me that gabapebtin was the best medicine for the neuropathy that I had as a result of the nerve damage, but it may end up going away, someday. I truly believe that the gabapentin didn't mix well with my current anxiety and anti-depression meds as it was about that time that I began to experience enhanced anxiety episodes .. . . often with no "identifiable triggers!" I became agoraphobic, for a while, too. I am not a shy person and I have never been agoraphobic, but I would have panic attacks when I thought about leaving the house, sometimes not being able to focus on what unneeded to do to get ready to go and sometimes sobbing uncontrollably! I didn't know what was wrong! My psychiatrist tried to help wean me off of the gabapentin and switched my anxiety medication. Unfortunately, when I reduced my gabapentin, even by one pill per day, I started having the neuropathy increase. As I said the neuropathy doesn't actually hurt, but it is like walking around with your leg "asleep!"

It seems like there is no simple answer to figuring out a better blend of medications, so I am back on my gabapentin (even though it does seem to inhibit my weight loss - i still managed to lose a lot of weight over a year's period, but it was harder because I had to really stay on a very strict diet, and I'm not sure just how much the gabapentin is responsible for my inability to continue to lose weight on a maintenance level). Does that make sense? Sorry that my post is so long. I didn't mean to get too "off subject," but I just wish I knew if there was a way to get off the gabapentin in case my suspicions about it's probable negative side-effects are true. I did try to investigate the drug, and I kept getting mixed messages, as well.

For now, I just am hoping that my body will regulate itself. I don't have those terrible panic attacks anymore, but I do think that my bouts of depression and anxiety are still more enhanced than before I took gabapentin.

Thanks for you comprehensive message JER. Like many here I want to trust that all the meds prescribed are helping and not hurting. I also question my ability to make a decision given my history of depression. An article in the New York Times last week about suicides that may be attributle to meds caused me to think differently. Initially the drug caused a state of euphoria in me and I thought I had found a miracle. I got "phantom" pain on one foot and thought it odd. In retrospect my anxiety was increasing and I was confused when I realized that I was thinking in ways I never was before.

Well it is day 2 off the drug. My anxiety has diminished but I am cautious to temper my expectations, Interestingly a hoarse voice was a non-mental side effect mentioned. In the past years this problem has come up and even after only 2 days off it is improved.

Again, thanks for the info you gave that is not available anywhere else. For now I plan on posting an update in a week of so.

I'm almost afraid to try to decrease and ultimately eliminate gabapentin, yet I think it might help to curb the enhanced anxiety and depression that I have developed over the past few years. I can definitely "understand" the reality of suicidal thoughts accompanying depression, now. I have never truly "felt" suicidal, until these past few years. Oh, surely, there were hard days when I thought to myself, "What is the point of my existence? Why should I live such an unhappy life? Would anyone even care if I just disappeared?" However, those thoughts were temporary, and I could recognize what triggered them - a certain incident in which I felt very unlivedvor misunderstood. Over the past few years as I dealt with chronic pain, unemployment, family strife, etc. (events which make everyone susceptible to inner-pity and feelings of despair), I noticed that I began to actually contemplate suicide more regularly. I wondered if it were the effects of the gabapentin. I couldn't stand the "phantom pains" of my neuropathy when I tried to get off the gabapentin, though. I sought medical advice and was told that whatever negative side-effects the gabapentin had on my anxiety, depression, and weight issues were most likely not active anymore as my body should be accustomed to the drug by now. Hmmm?

It's especially difficult to admit to these magnified feelings of suicidal thoughts because I am a Christian whose faith would inhibit me from actually fulfilling such an act. I'm embarrassed to say that I don't even meditate and pray for release and healing because I become so self-absorbed in my own unhappiness! Yet, I know from experience that when I do practice my faith, I do have better days. It's difficult to follow through with the actions thatvinnerd to take to keep me "afloat," though. So, I still wonder if it is the drugs that control my thought processes. I know that one should not try to get off any meds, cold turkey. I learned that from the days that I just stopped my nine-month period of taking Vicodin (hydrocodone) for my chronic sciatica pain! I didn't just get off of them slowly after my operation, like was suggested. No, I wasn't addicted to them as I had real pain, but once the pain immediately disappeared, I just finished my last prescription - albeit - I cut the dosage in half. Then came three months of mood swings! It was awful! I was crying over every little thing! I didn't even know why! Well, "it was the withdrawal," said the doctor. Duh! Anyway, my gabapentin was the only thing that kept the "phantom pain" at bay. I take 900 mg per day: 300 mg 3X. As I said before, the "phantom pains" or "tingling" are not really painful; they just cause me to have uncomfortable sensations that inhibit me from some activity. This happens when I try to just reduce by one pill a day.

Yet, your post gives me some hope that I might be able to wait out the withdrawal effects of the gabapentin and see if I could eventually manage without it or at least manage with a much more reduced dosage. I thought that 900 mg per day was outrageously high, but I've been told by doctors that is not true. Some people take twice that dosage! Wow! HOWEVER, do those same people also take anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds? Hmmm?

Please continue to update! Perhaps we can friend each other to keep track. At some point, I've got to become my own advocate.

Oh, sorry! I see that you sent me a friend request! LOL! I accepted!

I was on and off this for anxiety, 300mg 3 times a day. I found within maybe two weeks of this it quit working and would only sufficiently take the edge off it I took more and more as I adjusted to it. Then again I'm easily adjusted to medications.