While in the hospital, I had unexplained back pain. The Doctors threw every drug at me. Dilaudid, Morphine, Methadone, Oxycodone, and Gabapentin. Nothing stuck. My pain continued until another Pain Doctor examined me and decided it was my SI Joint. He proceeded to do multiple injections in that area which created extreme anxiety for me. In the end he nailed it, and although what seemed to me to be forever, my back improved.

Recently, I went to Pain Management at MD Anderson stating that my back had fully recovered, and that I wanted a plan to get off the Methadone and Gabapentin. He told me to do one at a time and that the Methadone should be first. I followed his guidelines and all went smoothly. Then it was Gabapentin's turn. I began reducing the dose, which by the way started at 2400 mg!!! The Doctor's reduction plan was to reduce 800 mg every 3 days. This meant that in 6 days I went from 2400 mg to zero. It seemed quite fast to me, but hey Doctor know best!

Starting on Day 1, having decreased my dose by 800 mg I threw up, and slept all day. By the third day of this same reduction my energy level was extremely low, and was eating almost nothing. On Day 4 when another reduction occurred, my appetite was non existent. My energy level was worse and I started having difficulty sleeping. By Day 5 I was unable to eat at all, had high anxiety, and could not sit still. No sleep that night, pacing, taking hot bathes, pacing and more hot bathes. Day 6 was all of the above except there was high agitation. I took a mild sedative slept for 2 hours and had horrific nightmares! I called my Stem Cell Doctor on Friday before the long weekend to avoid having to go to the Emergency Room. Well guess what, she told me to go to the Emergency Room. All of the lab work was fabulous, but because of the fear of graft vs host disease they decided to admit me to the hospital on a 23 hour hold, just in case I got a fever. I still couldn't eat, even with anti- nausea medication. I didn't need anti-nausea medication, my stomach had turned into a rock! In the morning the Doctor came by and asked if I was feeling better, I told him yes because I wanted to get out of there. I wasn't getting any better being in the hospital plus I was attached to that darn IV pole. Been there done that for 31 days!

I came back home on Saturday and again had a horrible day and still not able to eat. By this point I was at the end of my rope and would have done ANYTHING of taken ANYTHING to alleviate my symptoms. Therefore at that moment, I assigned myself the status of a Junkie. 

Thankfully my genius husband had put together a timeline of my reduction of Gabapentin and my symptoms and it became crystal clear that I was having withdrawals. He gave me 300 mg of Gabapentin and within 2 hours, I was calmer and hungry. Based on my symptoms throughout that day, I am now on 300 mg of the drug 3 times a day. I have my life back. I will begin a gentle tapering off of the drug when I am more stable.

During the horrific ordeal I lost all the weight that I had gained, and am now back at 94 lbs, and worse I have lost almost all of my strength that I had worked so hard at Physical Therapy to gain. It makes me sad, although I am rock solid on all of my blood work since my Bone Marrow Transplant.