[dogtanian]

i'm on this for my fibromyalgia, and apart from it making bugger all difference, the side effects are worrying. the only worry when i went on was that it is capable of inducing mania. i had one day of feeling slightly high, but no more. what's odd is that the last couple of weeks, i've had incidences of depression.

the med is affecting me adversely anyway in that it is randomly giving me terrible "morning after" effects. at first it was every morning, but now i wake up ok some mornings (aside from the kind of hangover feeling from lithium and seroquel) but other mornings i wake up feeling awful - groggy, i can't open my eyes, i walk into furniture and fall down stairs, i just feel dreadful. these are seemingly random, because i can't think of any common thing that is making this happen. it just happens without any kind of warning.

the other problem is the depression. the last, maybe 3 weeks or so, i've started feeling really depressed really suddenly and always in the early evening, although not every day. i know i don't have SAD, so i am guessing the med has something to do with it. about 5pm i start feeling utterly miserable, people start to annoy me, like for example my housemate just asked if i wanted a cup of tea and i wanted to shout at him to go away. i feel tearful and sad, but not about anything in particular - which is usually how my depressive episodes start. last week it happened at college, and i just didn't participate in the class at all because everything was bugging me. normally i love the classes at uni, so it's really weird.

each time this depression has lifted again by mid evening, but i'm worried that one day it won't lift. i hate depressive episodes, and i've just got myself settled, i don't want to go into one.

i think i've got to get off this medication - does anyone know if it's prone to causing depression?

[Larry_Hoover]

You kind of left out some important information, such as the dose and the frequency of dose.

Pregabalin has a half-life of about six hours, so it ought to be taken four times a day, but that's not realistic. You may be slumping based on the period between doses. Also, although total uptake is not influenced by food, the peak blood concentration is. Your blood concentration will be smoothed out more if you always take it with food. So, twice a day with a meal might be nearly as effective as three times a day, with no consideration for meals.

As to the specific side effects.....I'm using this drug right now, and it is a weird one. Very tough to pin down, exactly what it does. Some days, I have such a problem speaking, that I have to consciously work my mouth, for example.

Depression is not an acknowledged side effect, but, it certainly could be contributed to by this drug. It could make depression more likely, I would think.

I also find that there can be significant morning-after type effects, despite difficulty in sleeping on it at all. I attribute that to the short half-life....withdrawal effect, occurring overnight. So, I take it as soon as I get up, with coffee. And I try to spread it out through the day as best I can.

Lar

[dogtanian]

hi larry, thanks for that the dosage is 150mg at night. i started off on 75, and then 75 in the morning and 75 at night, but taking it in the morning was making me half asleep for the whole day, which meant i was unable to do uni work and stuff, so the doc told me to try it at 150mg at night. 4 times a day would be nigh on impossible for me.

the problem is when i take it at night it doesn't help me sleep. i've had issues with sleep since i was a baby, and although seroquel makes me "sleep" it's not real sleep, it's more like being knocked out and i don't wake up feeling rested. since going on pregabalin i often wake up feeling dazed and confused and literally unable to function.

i'm bipolar so there was a danger of it inducing mania, and the day i increased the dose to 75 twice a day, i did go a bit high for a day (to the point where my mum asked me if i was going up on the phone due to pressured speech etc) but it hasn't happened again.

going on what you said and what i was told about its potential side effect of inducing mania, could it be that after taking it at night, by the following mid afternoon-early evening i'm "coming down" and this leads to a spell of depression before i take it again?