I am my husbands caregiver. He is on many medications the last 2...

Continuation of Gabapentin side effects. Since the first post we have been working at stabelizing the side effects of the Gabapentin. His blood pressure started coming down as well as the blood sugars.
We saw the doctor last Friday the 25th and he wanted us to continue the Gabapentin stating that " we " would deal with the side effects. I was not happy, but with an HMO what can you do? They talked about adding either Nortripline or Amitripiline but would have to change the dosage on the Cymbalta and that is not acceptable as that is one medication that has made a major change in his outlook and I don't want that changed again.
So we continued with 2 capsules a day, one in the morning after the 15mg Morphine and one in the evening with the 15 mg Morphine before bed.
Things were about the same, no energy, unable to stay awake etc.
All he was doing was sleeping. Again I was convinced that it was the Gabapentin causing the problem. Wednesday morning after he was up and I took his b/p it was about 150/85 with a pulse of 69 not too bad, but could have been better. I said " don't take the Gabapentin today and lets see what happens. He said OK, and went to bed, but called me at work about 3 hours later when he woke and said he had just taken his medication. He fogot and took the Gabapentin. ( although he has memor loss as a medical issue, he has been much worse with the Gabapentin and even forgetting the day etc. He hung up but called back within 20 minutes and was in major pain. He said it felt like someone was pulling his eyes out of his head. He was almost in tears from the pain and he has a Very high pain tolerance, as well as medication tolerance.
Anyway he spent almost all morning in bed, ate lunch, etc and called me again and said he had to go back to bed again, his eyes were so painful all he could do is lay there with his eyes closed. Pupils were ok.
So I called the eye care specialists at the HMO and they immediatey called back and told me to get some lubricating eye drops without preservative and some lubrication oitment. I then put in a call the the advice nurse and said I wanted to talk to my husbands doctor or his team leader. She called back fairly quickly, they must have known I was not willing to let this go on any longer. I told her, " I am not being melodramatic when I tell you this medication Gabapentin is killing my husand " I want him off it now. She said she would talk to the doctor and get back to me. I reminded her he needed a short term pain reliever between the morphine doses. I said I know he just stopped it, but I want him back on the Tylenol 3 W/Codeine. He had been taking 8 per day for some time, working up to that dosage after almost 15 years. So she called again and said STOP the Gabapentin. The doctor called in the Codeine. So I went home put drops in his eyes, gave him 2 codeine and within an hour he was up and talking. No Gabapentin since then and his blood pressure is back down to 125/68 w/ a 62 pulse and his sugars are down to 126 w/o medication after breakfast of a Glycemia ceral he loves it.. and it does help with the blood sugar. His eyes are no longer painful and he is sleeping only in the early morning and a short nap in the afternoon which was his usual habit before all this happened. I can tell you stopping the Gabapentin was the best thing I have ever done and it may have saved his life. I had a phone appointrment with his doctor today and he said to monitor his vitals over the weekend, email him on Monday and let him know how my husband is doing. I said I know it will not take long to build up a tolerance again to the Codeine and what do we do then? His response was perhaps adding short term morphine in small doese between the time release morphine in the 15 mg doses he takes morning and evening. I will have to think about that. this opens up a entire new list of possible side effects.
Again thanks for allowing me to post. You can write to me personally if you would like to.

Charlotte

charking@ viser.net..