scary new medicine.. Gabitril.

[undergroundpanther]

Gabitril (tiagabine)
Been prescribed it for PSTD which is an off label use. I have been treated for epilepsy,"temporal lobe" before..but I was told it was dissociative stuff mistaken as epilepsy. I had one grand mal seizure in my life and that was caused by obscene amounts of thorazine I was given as an inpatient years ago.So I am a little tweaky bout taking Gabitril..
And what pisses me off is I ASKED my doc if there were side effects I should watch out for when he wrote the scrip......he said no side effects to worry about ,except maybe a little tiredness or temporary nausea.... WTF??!!?He said it was an Anti Anxiety drug..Which it is NOT
Why did he just blow off my concern and mislead me about the drug class for? Especially with THIS warning,

http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/advisory/gabitril.htm

After seeing that(Yikes) warning I searched for more info..
Gabitril apparently has some really serious and dangerous side effects.People have reported it causing psychotic breaks, seizures,memory loss, trips to the ER,breakouts,blisters in the mouth,slurred speech,all kinds of damn scary shit.... Others say it helps them for about a week,others think it's a miracle drug.. It seems if you get the bad side effect shit it is seriously bad shit. Otherwise it helps somewhat. Guess I am rolling the dice with this gabitril stuff. Why would my doctor to risk my health with diddling around with that off label bullshit?? I hate it when I get a new medicine by new I mean one that was approved and released after the FDA regulations were gutted. I feel like it's just not safe to take the newer drugs that are out there anymore.The new drugs aren't tested like the older drugs were that had more rigorous trials compared to the cheesy drug trial protocols that the pharmacuetical companies bought with thier 'candidates' gutting the regulations..nowadays.I had bad experinces with the newer drugs everytime I took one. I hope this one doesn't fuck me up worse than abilify did,abilify fucked up my intestines. Shit.

I can either put up with..PSTD torment or take a risk in the name of relief and possibly wind up in the ER. Damn. I'm actually scared to take it. Any thoughts y'all? I dunno what to do.
I feel like kicking my psychiatrist in the ass and telling him WTF were you thinking prescribing this to me off label ,are you aware of the risk this has you jackass!!??!

[DemExpat]

1. A quick search brought this up.....some people's personal experiences.

http://www.crazymeds.org/gabitril.html

:hug:

DemEx

[EFerrari]

2. Ask him. Ask him and see what he says.

And research real peoples' response to this drug.

Doug is prescribed a drug for mood leveling that is sure as sh#t off label-- but it works. So, just being off label doesn't tell you much.

We're on our own, as far as I can tell.

:hug:
:grouphug:

[NMMNG]

3. Off label isn't necessarily bad

Anti-convulsants were used for many years as mood-stabilizers before any of them became approved for that purpose. That didn't mean they weren't effective and safe for that purpose. Caution is still warranted, of course, as it is with any new medication (whether it is used for "on label" or "off label" purposes). It sometimes just takes the FDA a long time to catch up to what doctors and patients learn through trial and error.

While your psychiatrist was wrong for not telling you all the possible side-effects, prescribing it "off label" was not a wrong move. It is indicated for PTSD:

http://www.crazymeds.org/gabitril.html
http://www.adaa.org/GettingHelp/AnxietyDisorders/chart.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14728102&dopt=Abstract