Medicinal Usage Kava and Gabapentin crosstolerance?

[dooble]

Hey people,

I've been interested in kava for a while and decided it's time to register. So hello to all you lucky bastards living where you can obtain this wonderful (although I've never tested it) plant, and hello to all fellow Europeans and everyone else too.

Now, I suffer from GAD, insomnia and panic attacks. I've been prescribed Gabapentin for this. It works great, but only when I take about 3000mg twice a week, so that I always let a couple of days rest between dosing. This schedule works best for me. Yes it is recreational, but for me recreational has always been a couple of beers or something to help me get sleep.

I've studied kava's pharmacology and it seems to have something to do with voltage-gated calcium channels. Just like Gabapentin... So, even if I am lucky enough to convince my doctor to give me thumbs up on kava (and honestly right now it's either kava or benzos), should I expect tolerance to Gabapentin? I take Gabapentin only twice a week because I know it builds tolerance really fast and I do not want to lose my dear Gabapentin nights, they help me so much throughout the week.

Any experiences from those who use Gabapentin (or Pregabalin)? Probably the only way to know is to find out for myself, but I figured out asking wouldn't hurt.

Best wishes to all!

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

I've never read any experiences of this combo, but benzo's, alcohol or other GABA-drugs mixed with kava are usually said to pontentiate each other...it might hit you harder, if used together, and typically causes added stress to your liver.

Using Gabapentin a couple times a week isn't likely to have any effect of your kava experience, if you take kava when you're not on gabapentin.

I took a day off from kava once, to have lyrica (pregabalin), it was awesome...the next day my kava session went as usual.
In the past when my alcohol tolerance was high, if I switched to kava, it didn't affect the kava buzz...to any degree i was aware of.

 

[verticity]

I don't know, I've taken gabapentin (Neurontin) before, but not recreationally. I find it odd that people would do that. Maybe it does something at much higher doses than I was on.
Fun fact: Gabapentin is not metabolized by your body; it is excreted unchanged in the urine. So you can save a lot of money on prescriptions by drinking your own pee.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

That's pretty awesome, for it to go through you unmetabolized, reusable. It would be useful and somehow less shameful if you could boil it back down to it's powder form, with no other metabolites, to re-consume it. I think I read this about Pregabalin too, they're similar substances.

 

[verticity]

That's pretty awesome, for it to go through you unmetabolized, reusable. It would be useful and somehow less shameful if you could boil it back down to it's powder form, with no other metabolites, to re-consume it. I think I read this about Pregabalin too, they're similar substances.

I think it actually would be possible to recover it from urine, by extracting with solvents or distillation, but the process would be rather messy (and smelly)

 

[PallMall]

I used to take gabapentin everyday for anxiety. Currently, I take it several times a month (social situations where its not practical for me knead and drink kava,) and I've never noticed a strong reaction or cross tolerance with kava and gabapentin.

 

[Steve T]

I might be the best person to talk to here. I was taking 3 grams of gabapentin per day for about 2 years, and recently tapered off of it.

It is actually good that you spread out the gabapentin doses. The withdrawal symptoms can sometimes be similar to benzo withdrawals if you take it every day. The reason I started drinking kava was because I was tapering gabapentin and needed something to fill its place. I have a whole post about it in one of the sub-forums in addiction or health, not sure where it is. I would research the dependency/withdrawals of the drugs before committing to a certain amount per week. Some people don't withdraw at all but for me it was an entire project I devoted 9 months to.

You will find that 3g of gabapentin will really give you memory problems while taking it, and the next day. There are other side effects. This emotionally numb feel creeps up on you and things like driving the next day become more difficult. It is recommended that the max dose is 1800 mg per day, and preferably 1200 mg or less per day. 1800 mg might have been ideal for me, I only took more due to tolerance and being habituated to drinking tons of booze before I quit drinking.

I mentioned the memory issue because kava is extremely good at keeping your mind sharp while you are drinking it. Okay if you get krunk it is a different story, but that will only last 2 hrs. It is also why I prefer kava to things like cannabis or other prescription drugs.

I would try it kava for sure. I have drank it many, many nights while taking gabapentin. If I had it my way I would take 1200mg gabapentin per night with 4 tbsp of kava, because those were very relaxing times. But I don't want anything to do with gabapentin anymore. Doctors love to prescribe it because gabapentin basically can't kill you, it is nearly impossible.

If you feel like trying kava I would try to get the honokane iki deal from Gourmet Hawaiian Kava before tonight, if you are able to find it through the forums here. Then browse through preparation methods and brew some up. I don't want to generalize and say gabapentin is bad for everyone, but if drinking kava helps with your anxiety and reduces the need for gabapentin I'd try it. I don't know your relationship with your doctor, but I told mine about it and we have an open relationship about it. If kava is bad then I don't want to take it, but if it's good I want to take it, and the doctor should be on the truth's side. Anyway if you need info on gabapentin let me know.

 

[yardcat]

Been taking gabapentin for years for neuropathy in my legs. Just at night although the doctor said I can take 3 times a day. Tends to make me a little sleepy other than that no issues.

 

[dooble]

Thanks for your replies everyone, and I'm really sorry I missed your post Steve T. Gabapentin withdrawal is for sure something I don't want to go through, and with my current dosing I don't think I will have to.

I just ordered 500g of kava so I will soon know whether this herb will provide me the help I need. I also made an appointment with my doctor to discuss kava as a sleeping aid.

Have a great weekend everybody!

 

[verticity]

Semi-relevant:
Penicillin & the Recurrin' Urine

 

[lilmisschris]

I have been on 1800mg of Gralise, which is the form of Gabapentin that is once daily (and you pay dearly for that form), for a year, along with 10mg Baclofen and 100mg of Nucynta (each 4x daily) and have been told that I will be for at least 6 more months until we try to cycle off or make changes... So far this combo doesn't do anything for me as far as giving me any "good" feelings (which is FINE with me, I've been down the other road and don't want to go back). I'm already dreading the day we have to start cycling this down and making changes, but that is where kava will come into play more than just enjoying it from time to time... here's hoping at least.

 

[noneyobidness]

Hey people,

I've been interested in kava for a while and decided it's time to register. So hello to all you lucky bastards living where you can obtain this wonderful (although I've never tested it) plant, and hello to all fellow Europeans and everyone else too.

Now, I suffer from GAD, insomnia and panic attacks. I've been prescribed Gabapentin for this. It works great, but only when I take about 3000mg twice a week, so that I always let a couple of days rest between dosing. This schedule works best for me. Yes it is recreational, but for me recreational has always been a couple of beers or something to help me get sleep.

I've studied kava's pharmacology and it seems to have something to do with voltage-gated calcium channels. Just like Gabapentin... So, even if I am lucky enough to convince my doctor to give me thumbs up on kava (and honestly right now it's either kava or benzos), should I expect tolerance to Gabapentin? I take Gabapentin only twice a week because I know it builds tolerance really fast and I do not want to lose my dear Gabapentin nights, they help me so much throughout the week.

Any experiences from those who use Gabapentin (or Pregabalin)? Probably the only way to know is to find out for myself, but I figured out asking wouldn't hurt.

Best wishes to all!

Hey, I registered just to respond to you. So, without hesitation...

Gabapentin, for those of you not knowing, has a radical opportunity for abuse. And, I'm here to tell you, its fun as hell. Think a mild dose of MDMA when taken at larger doses. However, as already stated, it DOES cause memory problems with large doses even if its only 2-3 times a week. Taking it anymore than that is a complete waste as toleranc builds rapidly. As for WD's, I have unfortunately developed WD symptoms if I take a bunch in a weekend, which is the only time I take it. However, a strange thing that I noticed with Kava and Gabapentin, is that Kava will actually LOWER your tolerance to Gabapentin drastically, alcohol as well. Seeing how Kava may act to upregulate certain GABA receptors, this should be of no surprise. Not only this, but it brings back the awesome feelings of Gabapentin, which are ridiculous talkativeness, sexual arrousal, greatly increased confidence, increased sexual performance (Anyone could be a pornstar taking this stuff), and increased motivation. I never understood why people said it didn't have abuse potential.

However, taking Kava and Gabapentin together yields a totally chilled out experience. When I take Gabapentin recreationally, it is almost always more like how really good cocaine is supposed to be, but for about 5 hours. It is a superior anxiolytic to anything that I have ever tried, and gives me a powerful, driving energy that I have only ever experienced on Ecstasy. But, like I said, when I take it with Kava, all the pleasing effects of Gabapentin are negated. And, as a matter of fact, I can take 4000mg the night of a kava dose and feel NOTHING from the Gabapentin. Whereas if my tolerance was in check, I would get quite an experience off of just 1500. I got my Gabapentin tolerance down to 600mg, which is less than when I first started taking it. But, of course, it builds back rapidly, like within 2 days.

The moral of the story, DON'T use too much Gabapentin, and don't use it with Kava, as it is total waste. IME, Kava does indeed have a reverse tolerance on itself, and apparently Gabapentin. Despite various studies saying that the two act on different receptors, they play on each other, and quite positively if not taken together. Hope this helps.

 

[Steve Mariotti]

Thanks for jumping on here and sharing that, @noneyobidness! Really interesting. I didn't realize that about gabapentin. Never had it.

I can say that any kind of neurotransmitter agonist, with my particular brain chemistry, puts me in pretty much a stupor. It's not a stupor like you'd get from sedation, my brain working so hard and so much sensory input is flooding in, that I can't react or make heads or tails of anything. LSD, mushrooms, X (they called it that back then) all had that effect. Not pleasant at all! That's really the opposite of what I wanted recreationally when I was younger, and I figured I just wasn't "getting it" somehow.

Re-uptake inhibition, however, has done wonders at extending my life. Kava FEELS LIKE reuptake inhibition to me... if that even makes any sense at all.

I hope you stick around here, @noneyobidness.