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I've been off opiods for nearly 8 weeks but still fuzzy headed and low energy

I used gabapentin to detox (medically supervised) instead of Suboxone. Fortunately for me, I was a dependent rather than an addict on the substance use disorder scale. Addicts struggle with cravings after detox, dependents don't.

My question, does gabapentin slow down the process of  healing the brain's chemistry? Does it interfere with the brain re-establishing it's normal chemical balances? I started, during detox, with 900mg/d for 3 days, then dropped it to 600mg/d for 3 more days. Now I'm down to 100mg/d at night.

I still have this fuzziness in my head that I'm waiting to clear up. I thought the gabapentin might be contributing to this so I stopped taking it. Everything else is fine, I slept well, no other symptoms, but the fuzziness did not go away.

G
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495284 tn?1333894042
COMMUNITY LEADER
The fuzziness will go away.  Time and patience is our friend during this time.  You are doing great so keep it going~
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It's actually starting to get better. I was able to play 18 holes Sunday morning. Haven't been able to get past 9 holes until then. I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel and am able to put this behind me. I think my saving grace has been that I avoided drugs while young. For whatever reason I don't have cravings or memories of anything other than opiods being a pleasant high that I can live without. Dr. Kevin McCauley calls it the Dopamine/Glutamate cycle. Dopamine floods the frontal cortex from the VTA part of the brain, which says, "Hey! this is really really good for survival!" and sends a glutamate flood back to the VTA, creating memory pathways. Over time these become entrenched in the memory pathways and are part of the "cravings" syndrome. At 57 when I started opiates, this didn't happen to me, I have to think age had something to do with it.

Dr. McCauley is excellent in explaining the neuroscience of addiction, although he still embraces the Disease Model of addiction. Alternative thinking is pushing it towards a Disorder Model (Dr. Stephen Laviolette), which makes more sense since diseases attack the body, while drugs rearrange the order of brain function. I'm not trying to start a Disease/Disorder argument. After Detox my journey to recovery has led me to learning about drugs and the brain and there are compelling arguments for either interpretation. I simply choose Disorder over Disease.
I dont ever refer to myself as having a disease.  For me that would give my brain an opening, something i dont need!

Glad to hear you are feeling better.  Exercise is very good during this time so golf was a good choice!
1235186 tn?1656987798
Hello & welcome.  How long were you on the opiates? Congrats on your recovery eight weeks is still pretty early in the recovery time. How long of you been off the gabapentin? As stated above you will  continue to heal as time goes on. Your body & brain has to totally detox and get back to its normal brain chemistry. Best wishes.
Debbie
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Avatar universal
Hi,
I hope you're having a great day. Everything gets better in time it just does. When this happens we have to realize we didn't do this to our body overnight, so it's going to take awhile to reverse what we've done. Good luck. Happy Easter.
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495284 tn?1333894042
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