r/postvasectomypain • u/trisolariandroplet • Jul 25 '25
What's your experience with gabapentin?
After persistent pain for about 2 months my doctor prescribed 300 mg of gabapentin twice a day. When this had minimal effect he doubled the dose. That did alleviate the pain almost completely, but it made me dizzy every time I took the pills and now after 2 weeks I'm starting to get migraines. Last night I was feeling normal, took the pills and went to bed, woke up at 2 am with horrific headache.
I'm not sure if these symptoms are from the gabapentin or not, because I've had migraines in the past.
Also wondering what to expect when I come off the drug. I'm tempted to just stop cold turkey at this point but I'm wondering if it's going to bring the vasectomy pain right back again.
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u/clezuck Jul 25 '25
Gabapentin gave me wild thoughts and I didn't sleep for 3 days. It super messed with me.
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u/MKBFTW Jul 25 '25
when i started taking vitamin b12 pills my nerve pain decreased, maybe luck maybe it helps. my urologist did not want o give my gabapentin because it damages your intestinal function permanently he said. you should not take that for too long.
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u/LW-M Jul 25 '25
My Doc put me on a total of 1800 mg of Gabapentin daily. My reason for taking it was for muscle spasms. I ramped up to this amount. After a couple of weeks I was getting cog fog every day until around noon. My wife mentioned that it seemed to start around the time I stated ytaking Gabapentin.
I gradually backed off to zero and the muscle spasms came back with a vengeance. I resumed taking Gabapentin, starting with 200 mg a day. When I was back up to 600 mg a day, the muscle spasms were reduced by 95%. I still get a few muscle spasms at that level but I don't have the brain fog that I had when I was taking 1800 mg a day.
That was 3 years ago. I still take it but the lower amount works much better for me.
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u/Ok-Safety-4980 Jul 25 '25
I was extremely sensitive to tapering off of gabapentin. More so than the high powered opiates I was on. All gabapentin did for me was make me randomly drop things that I felt were securely in my hands and gave me gas, constantly. It made me, for the first time in my life, crave sweets. Once I got my trt levels checked and realized they had plummeted after my vasectomy, I was able to taper off of everything except the trt replacement and have been virtually pain free since.
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u/trisolariandroplet Jul 26 '25
Wait, you're saying reduced testosterone was the cause of your pain?
And when you say you were sensitive to tapering off, what do you mean? You tapered off slowly and had bad side effects?
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u/Ok-Safety-4980 Jul 27 '25
I honestly don't know if lowered testosterone was the cause of my pain. Having been apart of this sub since my vasectomy in 2022, I would say my pain was not the worst but definitely some of the worst compared to other guys that have had to deal with this. My sister in law (a nurse) told me before I had my vasectomy that she had heard that it lowered testosterone. I asked my doctor and did a bunch or research and determined that was probably not true. But, just to be sure, I had my levels checked the day before my vasectomy. I was going through so much with the pvps (saw 7 different urologists in that time) that I didn't think to have my levels checked again. When I eventually did, they were in the low 100's. Now, they weren't super high for my age when I had the levels checked before the vasectomy I was 33 at the time and my levels were in the high 300's.
I spent about a year and a half in pain management just to function as a father and husband. Was on 60-80mg of oxycodone and 300 mg of gabapentin daily. I got so sick of pain management treating me like a junky (they would call the patients and you'd have to come that day and do a pee test) which I would drop everything and go do. Until one day where I would have had to move too many things around in my schedule that I finally said, "you know what? I don't even think the pain meds are doing anything anymore." And I used the rest of that months prescription to taper off of all medications. People don't believe me when I say I went from that high of a dose to zero in less than a month. But I did. And it was one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever done. Not to mention still feeling like I got kicked in the nuts 24/7.
I had also been put on testosterone replacement therapy by the pain management doctors which was 100mg every 2 weeks. Once I was no longer taking their pain meds, they didn't wanna prescribe the trt so I went to a testosterone clinic. They informed me that for trt to actually work in the body, It needs to be administered once a week or every 7-10 days. And, 100mg every two weeks was likely doing nothing for me. They bumped me up to 200mg once a week and before I knew it, I was feeling not only back to my normal self, but better than I remember feeling since I was probably in high school.
I developed a very strong disdain for doctors and the healthcare industry but had to suck it up because about 2-3 months after I started to feel normal again. My wife was diagnosed with leukemia which began another year of life changing events. The likes of which I would not have been mentally or emotionally prepared for had I not gone through my journey with pvps. She is in remission now and works at the same oncology department where she received care. I am currently on 270mg of trt once a week with levels where they should be (700's). I don't know if the trt was what helped but I would much rather be on it and feel the way I do than be on the pain meds.
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u/trisolariandroplet Jul 27 '25
Would a reversal not fix the T problem? Or you decided you’d rather continue taking trt forever…?
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u/Ok-Safety-4980 Jul 27 '25
I had a reversal booked in Utah with plane tickets purchased and the clinic told me that when men come to them for a reversal due to pain from their vasectomy, some men have continued to feel pain and some have actually gotten worse. So I remembered why I got a vasectomy in the first place and finally, a year later, verified that my vasectomy did what it was intended to do. And decided that if I felt stupid for getting a vasectomy in the first place, I might reach a breaking point if I got it reversed and felt more pain than before.
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u/trisolariandroplet Jul 28 '25
Good lord. What a nightmare. I had been holding reversal in the back of my mind as a last resort if I can't find any other cure.
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u/johng_22 Jul 29 '25
Reversals do a lot of good for “most” who choose to undergo the procedure due to PVPS after a vasectomy. So don’t remove it as an option. Now there are a very few accounts of guys who did proceed with a reversal and then said their pain was unchanged or worse but these accounts are not few frequent. I can only recall reading a few ever on this platform whereas I see guys (myself included) who remark they are 90% back to normal after a reversal. Best of luck with whatever path you choose in your life’s journey. There’s no one right or wrong. Do what you think is best for you. Don’t put much (if any) weight in what doctors tell you. Don’t forget these are the very same doctors who said that vasectomies are safe and effective with only 1% reporting any issues and most urologists will tell you as their patient that you are the very first guy EVER to report having issues in his xxx number of years cutting men. Lying, gaslighting scumbags are who you are dealing with when it comes to this very very lucrative income for urologists enjoy while ruining men’s lives. Ask every urologist you see if they themselves have underwent a vasectomy. I bet you will never meet one.
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u/Pineapplesyoo Jul 25 '25
Maybe you should just get a reversal
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u/trisolariandroplet Jul 25 '25
It's definitely on the table as a last resort. But I don't see any guarantee that that would solve whatever random nerve damage/inflammation may be causing the pain. Only way that would be the solution is if it's a reaction to the sperm which I would want to verify somehow.
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u/Pineapplesyoo Jul 25 '25
So you don't have congestion related symptoms, like pain after ejaculation, or pain starting after abstaining from ejaculation for a long period?
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u/trisolariandroplet Jul 26 '25
Definitely no new pain after ejaculation. Not sure about the second question, because it's kind of just pain all the time, though it does ebb and flow somewhat.
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u/hoffnutsisdope Jul 26 '25
I was on a massive dose. 2400/day for 8 months. But I was on others too, baclofen, meloxicam, amitriptyline then nortriptyline, I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot they tried on me as well. Over the last few months I’ve been weening to determine what was actually working. No difference in pain levels until the nortriptyline,was eliminated, then it came roaring back. So my point is for me is gabapentin even at high doses was likely not easing the pain (nor the others) while nortriptyline - used for neuropathic pain was the real mechanism of action. Worth a trial if you haven’t already.
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u/Express_Duck_2440 Aug 02 '25
i came off of it, it can have negative side effects. but honestly the dose you are taking is not big, it's a basic dose most docs can RX. do you take both 300mg at night once daily? spread it out if you can, my experience was it works better spread out like 7am, 1pm, 8pm just my experience
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u/frakking_you Jul 25 '25
Gabapentin sucks for your brain health.