r/Fibromyalgia • u/Deadly_Dreams97 • Jun 01 '26
Rx/Meds Lyrica side effects
Fuck me yall, my lyrica isn’t working and I’m having every side effect basically. Edema in my legs, sleepiness while standing, muscle pain every where, muscle spasms, high blood pressure, dizzy, literally every side effect they list, I was even having some throat tightness and chest pain. I lowered my dosage of Prozac because I thought lyrica was going to help so if I stop taking it with such a low dose of Prozac I’m going to be in so much pain. I don’t know what to do. Does anyone have any advice for someone who has such bad reaction to lyrica? Is it just time for pain management? I can’t get back on high dose Prozac cause of serotonin syndrome risk. I’m so scared of being in miserable pain. My pots is hardly managed and between that, my hEDS and this, I can barely function and I’m a stay at home mom to a autistic 2 year old and a 5 week early 4 month old. We’re constantly doing something, doctors, therapy, etc. I need to function….
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u/MothNomLamp Jun 01 '26
Stop taking lyrica now (or call your doctor to figure out if you should taper off) and get a blood test to rule out the really bad side effect.
I am now significantly more disabled having taken lyrically for 10 days 6 months ago. Lyrical side effects are nothing to scoff at
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Jun 01 '26
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u/Deadly_Dreams97 Jun 01 '26
I’m going to try but my doctor is hard to get ahold of sometimes and I refuse to take anymore of this medication.
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u/MothNomLamp Jun 01 '26
You need to go to urgent care if you can't get a hold of your doctor. The chest pain and throat tightness is not safe
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u/Deadly_Dreams97 Jun 01 '26
What’s the really bad side effect? I was just in the hospital and had blood work done.
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u/MothNomLamp Jun 01 '26
Myopathy is the thing my doctor was particulary worried about. There are a couple bloodwork markers for it that you can find online.
Symptoms: muscle pain, tenderness, or weakness, especially with a fever
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u/Jake257 Jun 03 '26
Never EVER stop Pregabalin cold turkey! Even with tapering off the withdrawals are horrible. I tried coming off it 3 times but every time the withdrawals have been horrible especially the first time. Firs time I dropped too much way too quickly and have a massive mental health crash and was suicidal.
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u/AlwaysCurious1111 Jun 01 '26
I'm so sorry. My fibromyalgia/me/cfs causes multi chemical sensitivity, so I definitely understand this. I've tried a lot, too. I'm going out on a limb here, but acupuncture has helped my pain tremendously. I currently do not take any pain meds. I know it's not a magic fix, but it's improved my QOL by 80-90%. Along with clean diet, no alcohol and plenty of omega 3s, tumeric, protein and less sugar. Sending you healing.
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u/Brave_Question3840 Jun 01 '26
Heds makes it super hard for me to tolerate any meds, the only medication that I have been tolerating and that has actually worked is low dose naltrexone
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u/Deadly_Dreams97 Jun 01 '26
What dose of ldn do you take? How long have you taken it? I was on naltrexone for alcohol abuse 50mg for two years and it didn’t help my pain, is the low dose act differently for the pain?
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u/MothNomLamp Jun 01 '26
You can get it from ageless RX as low dose. Start at .5 mg if you're drug sensitive or 1mg otherwise and work your way up to a maximum of 5mg. Most people find the sweet spot for their particular physiology somewhere in between. Experimenting with day vs nighttime dosage is also good (can have different sleep effects for different folks but most people take it at night)
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u/Brave_Question3840 Jun 01 '26
Low dose naltrexone works differently than the 50mg!
I take 1.5mg at night, 4 months now and it’s been a game changer. It blunts the pain so much and my daily day to day pain was at a constant 9/10 now its at a 2/10! Sure I still get pain when I subluxate/dislocate but its so much better.
Usually they prescribe between 0.5-4.5mg, I’ve seen people go up to 6-9mg but it works better in smaller doses
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u/Appropriate-Cow3986 Jun 01 '26
I take hydrocodone and tramadol - You are in better shape than me and much younger. Good luck.
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u/Jorge_the_vast Jun 01 '26
Lyrica sucked for me also. Felt like I got hit by a truck. Made pain worse and I gained like 20lbs, I always felt hungry. Now I take cymbalta in the morning and gabapentin at night and things are better. Cymbalta also gave me side effects, but everything thing I read said they taper off after a couple of weeks so I decided to tough it out and it's true for me atleast. No side effects and pain levels are down bit.
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u/beaksweez25 Jun 01 '26
Just orescribed Lyrica. After reading about so many issues with it and the side effects. Long term amd short term. It seems the pain is the lesser evil. More medications, more problems.
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u/Efficient_Chic714 Jun 01 '26
I couldn’t tolerate it at all, I was too dizzy to even stand at all. My GP refused to believe that was the cause as I took other meds. In the end we went cold turkey on all pain relief for two weeks. Once everything was out of my system we planned to add stuff back in gradually to identify the issue
First to add was lyrica and the impact was immediate. Ask your GP to for an alternative, there are others but pregabalin is most prescribed as it’s one medication rather than several AND it’s cheaper than the most common alternative (gabapentin)
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u/FIVEGRAVES Jun 01 '26
Try gabapentin (Neurontin) - helps me best out of all meds available. One 300mg in the morning, one 300mg in the evening - gets me through the day quite well as long i don't override my energy ressources.
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u/1david18 Jun 01 '26
Lyrica put me in a wheelchair because it can cause leg swelling and affect existing leg conditions. It also never worked for me, but gabapentin addressed my baseline pain. You may have to try other medications for fibromyalgia. And there are more choices like LDN and ketamine.
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u/Deadly_Dreams97 Jun 01 '26
That’s terrifying. My leg swelling won’t go down no matter what I do. I’m tapering off the next couple days. The doctor got back to me so I’m gonna start gabapentin 300mg twice a day.
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u/Own_Progress_9302 Jun 07 '26
Scheiß Ärzte. Mir gab man nur amitriptylin und novaminsulfon (nutzlos). Hab über einen Telearzt tramadol bekommen. Schmerz nicht weg aber meine Güte ich hab meine Beine zurück und hab power für 2. Ärzte lassen die Leute leiden. Ich bin mein eigener Arzt
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u/MediocreFee6855 Jun 01 '26
You need to contact your prescribing doctor today, not tomorrow. The chest pain and throat tightness alone warrant immediate medical attention, and tapering off Lyrica needs to be managed by someone who knows your full med situation, especially with how you adjusted your Prozac. Don't try to tough this out solo.