Personally, I find Gabapentin evil. But, I take it anyway. I was prescribed 600 mg tablets but I only take half (300 mg) at a time.
I have had Type 1 diabetes for 44 years now, since I was a child. It is not unusual for me to have a tonic-clonic seizure from low blood sugar but fortunately, I have that under control. Unfortunately, it seems that my body now uses tonic-clonic seizures as a response to other things, such as Gabapentin.
I have the vivid dreams, like others have mentioned but I also have these seizures, sometimes back-to-back with multiples in the same day (in the same hour). I have bruised myself in more places than I can count from the damage that these seizures are causing. I have talked to doctors about it but they don't believe me.
I am fortunate that my diabetic neuropathy is not worse than it is but during a seizure, I fell (hard) against a wall and damaged my spine. As a result, I have a disc problem which causes extreme leg pain and that is why the pain specialists prescribed Gabapentin.
They also prescribed something else, which works better, but it is only enough to cover the pain for half of the month and so the other half is covered by Gabapentin. The reason that I believe it is the Gabapentin causing the seizures is that I do not have any during those first two weeks and I am fighting off seizures for the last two weeks, every month.
I would go without any medication but now, even though the doctor has prescribed something else for seizures, it is the wrong medicine but my body has become accustomed to it and when I remove that medication, I have seizures. Also, without any pain medication, I do not sleep and when I do not sleep, I have seizures.
Life is a balance. I am a test tube. From what my husband and I have tested, I could probably live life without seizures if the first medication were increased, the Gabapentin was removed entirely, and the other medication was steadily decreased until removal. But, doctors here don't believe that anyone knows anything except them. And, if I explained this to the nurse practitioner she would simply remove the Gabapentin which, at this point, subjects me to two weeks of seizures from the lack of sleep from the pain.
Personally, I would recommend that if you do not have to take Gabapentin, don't. But, it does work for my leg pain so yes, I take it and then try to ensure that there are safe places to fall when I have those nasty seizures as side effects.
so far what is most effective for dealing with it is regular exercise everyday. And I take vitamin b12 supplements too.
