Gabba Gabba Hey…

My eleventh (11th!) prescription, Gabapentin, seems to be a bit of a miracle worker. Due to complications from diabetes I suffer from diabetic neuropathy, pain and damage along the nerve channels which can occur anywhere but is particularly troublesome in my feet and hands. I can’t feel the majority of my left foot and about 10% of my right is numb.

I don’t know if you’ve ever suffered from nerve pain but let me try to describe some of it. The worst feels like someone slowly pushing, not stabbing, but forcefully, glacially inserting ice picks into my feet. Usually in two or three places at once but sometimes just one and other times it can be more there was also often a sensation of extreme temperature both hot and cold with the ice pick type pain. There’s also a pins and needles sensation an order of magnitude worse than the worst time your leg ever fell asleep.
I also get, mostly in my fingers, a sensation not unlike the whole fingertip being slowly (slow seems to be a presiding factor in this type of pain) crushed in a bench vise or by a pair of slip-joint pliers.

I started taking Gabapentin three weeks ago and it’s amazing. Almost all of my nerve pain has been suppressed. Instead of fifty to a hundred events a day I only have two or three. There’s been a couple days where I haven’t had more than a few hazy twinges and I still haven’t worked up to the full dosage the doctor wanted me to get to.

Now if the doctor could find something equally as good for the arthritis, joint and back pain I’d be in heaven.