Hi. I have just spent 2 days in hospital having a half knee replacement. I continued to take my normal parkinsons medication. Co-carladopla, Entacapone, Seligiline. However as part of my medication for my knee I have been taken Gabapentin twice a day. Now this appears to have been a mirical. My tremor is normally very prominent, my dexterity poor, I constantly wear off and I have been considering DBS. Since taking the Gabapentin mY sysmtoms have been practically non existant. I normally take Co-carladopla, Entacapone 6 x daily however I am sat here at 1530 having only taken x2 lots and have had no evidence of my symptoms. Has anyone been prescribed this medication? Does anyone know it's background etc? I believe it's primarily used for epilepsy.
One happy bunny at the moment......:-)
Hi Wjr
What a happy side effect. Good for you. My daughter has had CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome) in her foot for some years now. In the early stages she was prescribed Gabapentin to try and block the nerve/pain pathway but it didn't help her pain at all and made her incredibly muzzy headed so she gave it up in the end. So it is obviously meant to work on nerve connections or something like that. Great news.
Do you think it might have anything to do with gabapentin being designed to suppress neuronal hyper-excitability which can become excito-toxicity and kill neurons. New link with netrin-1 loss by changes in the genes within the neuron itself. Adding netrin-1 restored neurones. See Medicalxpress News "When the brain's wiring breaks" 12 sept 17, and "Dopamine oxidation mediates mitochondrial and lysosomal dysfunction in Parkinson's" in Science 7 sept 17.
Basically Gabapentin was developed as an anti epileptic drug, but discovered to be useful in neuropathic pain, by suppressing abnormal signals, so I guess that is the effect it is having on tremor. There are fewer side effects with its later offspring Pregabalin.
yes been on gagabapentin for yrs for nerve pain
I have just started taking gabapentin and yes, my tremor has reduced. There has been research carried out on usefulness of this drug in cases of essential tremor and PD.
This information can be located www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov or just google ncbi. National Centre for Biotechnology Information
I have been taking Gabapentin for pain for some time, long before my PD diagnosis, so I wonder if my tremor would have been worse without it - we will never know"
Good point, Knine. We can only self report what works for us on an individual basis. There is some evidence to say helps with tremor but no evidence to say for how long? Duration of impact may be short term ? May not help everyone with pd as surely it would be prescribed for pd trenmors.
Personally cannot understand why no more research on what component of gabapentin helps tremor in pd (for some) and why nit prescribed for pd.
Pain like sciatica for me almost gone, neuropathy pain can cope with but now not taking this drug tremor is a little worse at rest.
Worthy of more research,in my opinion, as tremor impacts on quality of life.
Let me know if you are aware of any research on drugs to calm tremor that does not involve sedation, alcohol or anyother relaxant.
Anyone ?
So sorry for errors, hope you can understand my insomnia induced typing. X
It was fine - my mistakes usually include lots of Capital letters. Don’t know why. I am not intending to shout.
Hi, 5 years on but I have just seen your post. Amazing! I have been asking my neurologist about Gabapentin, but he doesn’t want to know. I had a similar experience when taking Tramadol for a back injury, I kept feeling I didn’t need my sinemet dose. I reported it at the time to Parkinson’s UK but nobody took me up on it!!! I am currently really struggling with on/off and rigidity. I have been on levadopa therapy for 30 years and I know that I am reaching the time to look at other things, although not a fan of DBS etc!!! Were you able to stay on the Gabapentin? Did it continue to help? Sally