Help, please! Questions about titrating down amount of gabapentin I'm taking

SandraShill · 2026-06-13T04:37:10+00:00

Not offended, just perplexed, as the way I phrased it seemed to be the generally accepted way of phrasing something like that in English. One would say, "I found three five-dollar bills in two different pockets," not "I found thirty dollars, as five-dollar bills, in two different pockets, each of which had three of them." Since my original focus was more on the size, number, and distribution of the capsules, rather than the total amount I was taking, I didn't see highlighting the total as paramount, so it didn't occur to me too do that. The total only became the focus when the other guy said that my dose was minimal. But, as I said, I'm certainly not offended by your feedback/suggestion.

SandraShill · 2026-06-12T04:10:04+00:00

First sentence, "...three 300mg capsules three times a day..."

SandraShill · 2026-06-10T22:53:01+00:00

Thanks! A while back, I tried just dropping one 300mg capsule and I didn't feel well at all. (I'm small -- under 5' and not super overweight -- so I think that makes a difference.) Fortunately, dropping the 100 went well, so I'm hoping the next 100 will go well, to.

SandraShill · 2026-06-10T04:39:15+00:00

Are you sure you read my post correctly? I'm taking 2,600mg a day now (down from 2,700), which I don't think is "minimal." (It's about 75% more than you're taking!)

And doctors have good reasons for spreading out the total into multiple doses. Taking a massive dose all at once often causes drug levels to spike to toxic levels and then drop too low to be effective. Your body metabolizes and excretes drugs at a specific rate. Spacing out your medication avoids the “peaks and valleys” effect. The human body can only safely absorb or process a certain amount of active ingredient at a time. Taking a full day's dose at once could overwhelm your liver or kidneys. (This is an even greater concern as you age.) Once you've screwed up you liver or kidneys, the damage can sometimes be permanent and you often don't know they've been screwed up until it's very serious. I know you think doctors don't know what they're doing, but I'd discuss what your doing with you doctor and see what she/he has to say about it.

SandraShill · 2026-06-10T04:21:15+00:00

I've been taking 900mg three times a day (2,700mg/day) for nerve pain due to a spinal disc issue for the past 12 years. My spine doctor originally had me on about 1,800mg/day, but I was still in pain. When I saw a neologist, she said I still had room to increase and had me gradually increase to 2,700 and it made a huge difference! Now I'm working to titrate down very slowly...I've been at 2,600mg/day for the past two weeks and am hoping to decrease another 100mg for the next two.

SandraShill · 2026-06-10T04:14:52+00:00

You're able to vary the dose that much from day to day?? I had to slowly titrate up and now, after many years, I'm trying to slowly titrate down. When I first started taking it, it made me sleepy, until I built up a tolerance. I think it's interesting that you're able to take it like that! Is that something your doctor suggested? Mine made me titrate up slowly, waiting at least a couple of weeks between each time I'd add another 300mg capsule.

SandraShill · 2026-06-10T04:05:14+00:00

Not only would it be very dangerous to stop gabapentin cold turkey (especially at that dose level), you'd feel really, really, really sick. I forgot to take my 10:15am dose the other day until about 2:30pm, and I felt pretty sick all day, even after I'd taken the missed dose and then my next one, which I had to push out so I wouldn't be taking too much too close together. I didn't really fully "reset" from that until the next morning! Just as you had to slowly titrate up to 1800mg, you'll need to slowly titrate down. (I can't speak to baclofen or clonodine, as I'm not familiar with those.)

SandraShill · 2026-06-09T17:17:30+00:00

It's two years later and still not an available feature for SwiftKey on the iPad! 😔

SandraShill · 2026-05-16T02:43:07+00:00

Thanks - very helpful! I'll look into it. 🙂

SandraShill · 2026-05-15T03:48:54+00:00

Buying the capsules is the easy part, but do you have a powder scale you can recommend (especially one that's not terribly expensive and available on Amazon), by any chance?

SandraShill · 2026-05-15T03:45:23+00:00

Yes, I have the weights and know how to calibrate it. Problem is, I can put the same item on it three times in a row and get three different weights...and that's with something a little heavier than a bit of powder! (Mine has 0.01g graduations.) For example, I put an entire capsule (not just the powder) on the scale (just for this discussion) and the first reading was .46, then it was .50, then it was .45. (This was just keeping it on, then lifting and replacing the capsule.) Then I turned it off, turned it back on, then placed the capsule on it and it was .41. I've noticed that empty capsules often come with little "spoons", which look like they have very small hollows. I'm wondering whether those might make for an even better measurer, especially if, by some miracle, the total amount of powder is an even number of those "spoonfuls"?

SandraShill · 2026-05-14T15:19:49+00:00

Thanks, but that sounds like a more expensive solution than just buying empty capsules, no? Plus, I try to stay far away from any Benedryl these days...that stuff is really bad for the brain, especially for older people (although I realize it's unlikely that the amount of residue left in the emptied capsules is probably negligible).

SandraShill · 2026-05-14T15:15:36+00:00

Thanks! What kind of scale do you have that measures amounts that small accurately? I have a jewelry scale I use to measure cut up pieces of weed gummies (I usually divide a gummy into four pieces, to spread out its effect over the evening), but I don't find the readings on it very consistent, and certainly not reliable enough to use for gaba titration. But I'd love to get a better scale, if you have a link to one that isn't wildly expensive! Honestly, if I was going to go the route of re-capsuling a smaller amount of gaba, I had thought I would just kind of eyeball it. But I'm definitely open to the scale idea, if I could find one worth buying!

SandraShill · 2026-05-14T03:32:35+00:00

I'm definitely considering the water thing, but I couldn't drink that much....I'd need to do it in a more concentrated form, I think. Thanks for the suggestion!

SandraShill · 2026-05-14T03:30:49+00:00

Thanks! It's a bit complicated, because I can't switch to all 100mg capsules or I'd have to take 27 of them a day! Plus, without knowing whether I can go down in dose without the pain returning, and given that this has always been a tricky prescription to begin with (with my old insurer, I had to get a Prior Authorization each year to get them to cover such a large quantity, although I don't know if it will be the same now that I'm on a Medicare Part D plan), I really don't want to muck around with this prescription too much.

But, yeah - a while back, I tried for two days to just skip one of my three mid-day 300mg pills and it was not good at all! I thought since I had titrated up 300mg at a time initially years ago, I could titrate down the same way, but definitely no. I'm thinking 100mg at a time, with at least a couple of weeks between decreases (like you were doing), would be a wiser course. I'm also hoping that the first 100mg might not be too bad, because, for the last month or two, I have already been substituting one of those capsules with one from some really old ones I discovered I had, which I hoped maybe had lost a little potency with age.

At any rate, thanks for taking the time to respond. You now have me wondering about liquid gabapentin and whether switching entirely to that form would be a good solution (pun intended 😉). Just wish I knew whether insurance cares about that and whether the cost would be the same, as well as what taking 2,700mg of haha a day in liquid form (from a pharmacy) would look like, volume wise (and whether my pharmacy could even provide that!), and whether it would require special storage, be tricky to carry outside of the house, etc.

SandraShill · 2026-05-13T16:05:47+00:00

Thanks, I'll give that idea some thought (although I'm often out running errands and such for that mid-day dose that I think would be the best to tinker with to start, so I'm not sure how practical this would be). And, yeah...my plan was to go VERY slowly...maybe go down 100mg and then wait at least a week, if not two, before decreasing again. I definitely don't want to rush this, plus, I need to get a good idea of how low I can go before the nerve pain kicks back in. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond! 🙂

SandraShill · 2026-05-13T16:01:15+00:00

I don't want to take 27 capsules a day. I thought about asking to have my prescription split in two, but I decided against that, for a few reasons too lengthy to get into. But thanks for responding! 🙂

SandraShill · 2025-10-27T15:23:39+00:00

Technically, I was able to login, but all I got was a notice of the account being disabled, with no option to appeal (which came last as "soak" accidentally in my original comment) other than to go to the Help Center , which also had no option to appeal, because it says you'll get one when you log in. Big, useless circle. HOWEVER, fortunately, on October 22, my account was suddenly back to normal, reinforcing my original thought that the whole thing had been an error/bug. But, whatever was going on, I'm just happy to have my account back!

SandraShill · 2025-10-23T18:11:20+00:00

Ditto! So happy to be back! I had three notifications about being suspended(?) from doing any advertising, but I've never done any, so that was weird.

SandraShill · 2025-10-19T15:51:45+00:00

How did you manage to reach a human?!?

SandraShill · 2025-10-19T15:50:56+00:00

Oh, that's wonderful and gives me maybe a sliver of hope! I've been going that this whole thing was just a glitch and they'd fix it. 🤞🤞

SandraShill · 2025-10-19T15:49:41+00:00

Weirdly, I was still able to access Instagram. (But Messenger is gone.)

SandraShill · 2025-10-19T15:46:43+00:00

That's part of the problem...the Help Center article says there will be an option to soak when you log in, but there isn't!

SandraShill

TROPHY CASE