[steve55]

Hi all. Mark wanted me to make a seperate post specifically about my amazing experience with Lyrica. This way others can find it more easily.

For the past 3-5 months Ive been having pain, the last few months pain levels 5-6 most evenings with occasional slight burning in hands and arms. I also had a extreme tender spot right over my T4, as well as below the waist tenderness in my nerve track (its hard to describe exactly, but it really sucks). Well, about 10-11 days ago, I switched from neurontin (which seemed to not be working anymore like it once did) to lyrica and within 2 days I was absolutley pain free!! Before this drug, I was taking pain meds most nights and now I have only needed a pain pill once (or maybe twice at most) in the last 9 days. I thought Id wait a week before posting about this in case it was just a temporary fluke. But having 9 days of being 90% pain free, I know it has to be the lyrica. And I dont have that deep tender sore spot over T4 anymore either!! Well, yesterday I felt it a little bit for a short while after a long days work, but so far not today. If lyrica was just blocking the nerve pain, I would have thought Id still have that physical tender sore spot over T4, but its also gone too.

In addition, the lyrica improved my mental well being too. I had started taking Wellubutrin a few months ago for a depressive episode (Im bi polar 2, the more mild form of bipolar, so I occasionally take meds for that as needed) and the lyrica definitley seems to have finished knocking out the last 20% of my anxious depression that the Wellubutrin alone couldnt quite polish off. Although wellubutrin had done a thorough job on my anxious depression, I still noticed that I worried and ruminated about things that most people didnt, and I still had a slight tinge of anxiousness to my worries. Now after Lyrica, Im very mentally tranquil and no longer have that anxious tinge or obsession over my worries. Its a total mental peace. For the first time in a long time, I know I am 100% mentally normal. I can just tell that this is what normal is, you just know it when you feel it. I'm almost as happy for the mental improvement as I am for the pain improvement,...well, on 2nd thought, the pain was PRETTY bad , so maybe that's taking it a bit too far. I was getting so worn down and beaten down with the pain that it was getting hard to get out of bed in the mornings and was making it harder to function at work. I even started wondering if I might be heading towards social security disability or something like that. My imagination was really running wild. I dont need to tell any of you this, but Ill say it anyways,.... PAIN REALLY SUCKS!! Anyways, my anxious depressions have responded well over the past 20 years to anti convulsants so its not a complete surprise that this helped me in that regards. Its just that I wasnt even thinking of a mental benefit when I started taking this. Neurontin is supposedly quite similar to lyrica, so its weird that lyrica worked so amazing well when neurontin wasnt working at all anymore.

SO far, Lyrica has been nothing short of a MIRACLE drug. I pray this doesnt change. How nice it is to just be able to sit and exist with little to no pain. I am humbled and appreciative of these pain free days Ive been given. I cant believe I'm saying the word "pain free". Wow. I have my life back without needing narcos to get there , ...well, for now at least. (fingers crossed)