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do your pain meds make you forget and get mixed up

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Posted 3/17/2008 12:59 PM (GMT 0)
eyes   eyes lyrica is making me very "loopey".  yesterday i tried to do some housekeeping in the evening and i could not remember if i took my lyrica.  i did not want to take "too much" of the stuff and also i was very very tired so i just fell asleep.  today the pain is very bad so i took some more lyrica...o what a mess i don't know what is happening.  is this happening to anybody else?
Posted 3/17/2008 5:09 PM (GMT 0)
When I first began taking my 30 mg of oxycodone prescribed by my pain management Dr I had periods of forgetting that I had done one thing or another. I suppose it was because I went from Tylenol #3 to the oxy that made me rather loopy to begin with. Now it just relieves my pain and I can still operate like a normal person. Maybe this is your period of adjustment too. Sometimes it just takes time to get into the swing of normal life again when your meds are upped. If it continues or bothers you terribly I would call your dr. and talk it over with him/her. Hope your pain lessens soon!
Posted 3/17/2008 7:28 PM (GMT 0)
I have had to take to writing down when I take each pill. I can't find one of those daily pill box sorters that's big enough to hold all the pills I take in a day, but if you can maybe that's an answer to help you keep track of whether you've taken it. Make sure you're taking it as prescribed, so you don't inadvertently take them too close together, but I think we all know there are periods of adjustment to most of these meds. You can always call your pharmacist to ask if your side effects are more than are to be expected.
Posted 3/17/2008 10:46 PM (GMT 0)
I agree: write your med schedule down & I put little checkmarks next to each med when I took them. Also put them in little Dixie bathroom cups & maked each cup. If the cup was empty, then I knew I'd taken it, etc. Even wrote "AM" and "PM" on the cups, so I wouldn't forget the time of day!
I still use the AM/PM cup (one cup now) b/c otherwise I might not remember...Wisconsin weather is so lousy right now, hard to tell if it's morning or evening, haha!
And yes, Lyrica made me terribly forgetful & dopey. Also write down your reactions to these meds & note if your reactions abate after taking them awhile...I would forget if they helped or not, also! LOL

Good luck adjusting! Fine-tuning takes awhile, esp if your pain levels keep changing too.

~Lake
Posted 3/17/2008 11:30 PM (GMT 0)
oh, yes!  i second (and third) what everyone else has said.  i have a double whammy:  i have bi-polar disorder as well as cp.  both sets of meds cause loopiness.  about a week ago i was in terrible breakthrough pain.  ok, that's why the pdoc rxed morphine.  so i took one.  then i laid down.  i hurt so badly that i fell out of bed  because i was twisting and turning so much.  i reached over and took another - yes, one of those.  at about 3:00 am, i woke up in tgerrible pain so, not remembering that i had even had one morphine, i took what was, in fact, a third.

My wife asked me about my meds.  I told her what had happened and told her that I had taken a morphine.  "no," she sai8df, "you took at least three.  i watched you."  i turned my meds over to her.  i can't deal with thi9s and i really don't want to die right now.

PLEASE, EVERYONE, BE CAREFUL!!!

and a painfree week to all of us.

warren

Posted 3/18/2008 1:45 AM (GMT 0)
Joan,

You sound like I felt on that stuff. My head was so loopy and wobbly I couldn't literally not even hold it up, let alone know where or what I was. Stopped taking it cause I couldn't be that 'out of it'. We all have to deal with side effects of the medications and know where our limit is. Talk to your doc or pharmacist if you're concerned.

Chutz
Posted 3/18/2008 4:28 AM (GMT 0)
I tried Lyrica as well for my nerve pain caused by my CRPS and had very similar effects. Once I was actually driving to the docs office and forgot where I was going and how I got there. I eventually had to stop the Lyrica because it was causing me so much confusion. I also had similar side effects with Neurotin and that made me sleep for 16-20hrs. a day. However it has been said that everyone reacts differently to meds. Good luck with everything. Hope you find a medication that works well for you.
Posted 3/18/2008 8:38 AM (GMT 0)

Lyrica is one of those meds that work by directly changing the chemical components I might say or balance of our brains much like the neurontin and although it is not unusual to experience some lethargy and mild confusion in the begining I would not advise continuing a med that makes me forget whether I take it and then all I can do to save myself is go to sleep.

Call your prescribing Doc and please do as othes have suggested and make a sort of sign off sheet for your meds as you take them or buy one of those home dispensers,alot of drugstores give the 7 day ones away for customers. When we have pain not to mention alot of the meds we do have t take it is sometimes so easy to forget where we left off.

I also dont understand when you have pain you took another lyrica? I cant recall off hand but if I am not mistaken this med is not taken only when you have pain or at least I have not seen it prescribed that way and if you are not taking it on a regular basis this itself may be the culprit.

Most important call that Doc today and let at least the office staff know your having these kinds of reactions to this med.

Good luck to you!

Posted 3/20/2008 5:24 AM (GMT 0)
I read somewhere that b/c of her Lyrica fatigue side effects, her dr recommended she take the full dosage at nite.

So I decided to try for myself. In the past couple of wks, my lower back (spine) was killing me & tingling in my legs & I wasn't get any relief from my fatigue. MOF, I was taking 15 mg of my left-over Adderall (orig dosage was 30mg + 15mg if needed was ocassionally) & altho it stopped working for me in Jan, it starting working again. I got the mental stimulation & pain relief from my spine (Adderall always gave me pain relief for the 3-4 yrs I was on it.)

Anyway, 2 days ago I took my full dosage of Lyrica - 150 mg at nite b4 going to sleep. Let me tell you ... did I wake up a different person!! I actually felt quite "normal"! My back felt good & no tingling!

In the evening I felt a bit tired - not fatigued! I laid down for awhile & that seemed to help. My back continued feeling good all thru the day & nite. I cldn't wait to go to sleep again to see what happens for the next day.

Today is the next day & again I felt good even tho someone woke me up. I was a bit screwed up b/c of that & b/c I needed to accomplish some things today, I took the Adderall. However, I did NOT feel fatigued, more like a bit tired.

For those suffering from fatigue from the Lyrica, you might want to try this.
Posted 3/20/2008 6:01 AM (GMT 0)

hello H.W.,

I have been taking my lyrica for about 3 years now. 1 -75mg in the morning and 2-75mg at night Along with my cymbalta 60 mg.  After a hour or two, then I take my ambien cr right before I go to sleep. I sleep like a baby. It does not matter when you take your lyrica as long as you keep taking the mg amount prescribed to you daily. Adding another lyrica will not do much for you if your trying to use them like a breakthru med.

I also have a weekly pill box with all the meds per day in m-f. I never have to worry about taking too much or too less or wounder if I missed dose hear or there because there always in the day box

Have a pain free day all,

                           

                             mike

Posted 3/21/2008 7:30 AM (GMT 0)
My narcotics don't seem to affect my mental functioning but Neurontin had me in an awful fog. I'd pick up the phone and not remember who I was going to call. It was a total nightmare. I found that I could manage by writing things down and lowering the dose, but when I had a flare and had to increase the meds again, I was just as whacked out as before.

My Doc tells me that Lyrica is reported to have less of these types of side effects, but I don't believe that. Others have reported the same problems you are having and I believe that since I've had the "Fog" on Neurontin, I would likely have it on Lyrica. The only real difference would be a higher co-pay for me, so for now, I'll spend less and deal with the same effects.

The one thing that I found to be most helpful was to slowly increase my dose, gradually building up a tolerance to it. Did you just start out on your current dose or did you work your way up? Perhaps you could drop to a lower dose and slowly titrate up to something you can live on without such terrible side effects.

Good luck.
Posted 3/21/2008 6:58 PM (GMT 0)
When I started on neurontin I made my doc give me 100mg capsules and I started up very slowly. Found my body was very sensitive to it and it took months for me to get up to my current dose of 1600mg/day. And yes, there are side effects. I've tried Lyrica but no one ever increased the dose adequately - was only on 75mg 2X/day and that didn't cover the symtptoms so back to neurontin. And like you, Keah, I'm not sure there's be enough difference to warrant the increased co-pay, which for me is significant. Neurontin is $5; lyrica is $50!
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