Tag Archives: gabapentin

Gabapentin for Musculoskeletal Pain?

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At one of my recent jail medical clinics, three patients in a row requested prescriptions for gabapentin.  One was a patient newly arrived from the Idaho Department of Corrections to be housed at my jail due to prison overcrowding.  He had already been prescribed gabapentin at the prison for complaints of low back pain radiating to one leg and wanted me to continue it–forever.  The second patient was prescribed gabapentin by his outside practitioner for a boxer’s fracture that had been surgically repaired years ago.  The third was prescribed gabapentin at a previous jail due to “nerve damage” from an old gunshot wound to the upper arm (he had a large scar but no functional disability or decreased sensation).

Gabapentin prescriptions for nonspecific musculoskeletal pain have clearly become common in the community and in corrections.  These three patients represent only a fraction of the similar cases I see in my jails! I suspect that this gabapentin-mania is being driven by a belief that gabapentin is preferable to prescribing narcotics (though I would not think any of the three patients above would be candidates for narcotics).  Gabapentin, in fact, is often prescribed for musculoskeletal pain in my community first line—before NSAIDS and Tylenol, even—and many, like these three patients, subsequently believe that gabapentin is something they will need to take for the rest of their lives. 

The problem is that prescribing gabapentin for musculoskeletal pain is not evidence-based and (in my opinion) bad medicine.

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Gabapentin in the News!

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2018 has been a remarkable year for news and research into gabapentin, and the year is not even over yet! That is great news for those of us (myself included) who puzzle over the proper role of gabapentin within correctional medicine. On the one hand, if gabapentin is a useful drug for chronic pain, neuropathy, or any other medical condition, I want to use it properly. On the other hand, gabapentin is a ferociously abused drug within jails and prisons. It is both a sedating and euphoric drug that also can be hallucinogenic at high doses. When it is available within a prison, there is inevitably abuse of gabapentin (like snorting it), diversion of gabapentin (because it has large value within the correctional black market and so can be sold to others), and finally, there is inevitably coercion of weaker inmates by stronger inmates to acquire gabapentin prescriptions and give those prescriptions up to the strong.  Those of us in corrections have seen all of this and worse.

So any news of gabapentin, whether good or bad, can change the balance of this deliberation. If gabapentin is proven to be more effective medically, it may be worth tolerating the abuse. If it is found to be ineffective, there is no reason to introduce this stressor into the system.  With this in mind, here is a sample of the 2018 news on gabapentin. Continue reading →

Taming the Beast—Gabapentin. Ban It or Regulate It?

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In my last post, I began with a question from Christy.  Her facility was considering banning gabapentin from their facility due to rampant abuse and diversion problems.  My last post dealt with gabapentin’s interesting history and the evidence base for off-label gabapentin prescribing.  This JailMedicine post will deal with the pros and cons of banning gabapentin versus creating rules to regulate gabapentin use and hopefully minimize diversion and abuse. Continue reading →

Taming the Beast: Gabapentin

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A reader recently wrote

At our facility, one of the most abused drugs in Neurontin. I am the trying to formulate when this medication will be continued. My question is if the following is acceptable in your opinion:
Neurontin will not be given for any indication not approved by the FDA. The only indications approved by the FDA is for epilepsy and PHN after shingles. Now the question remains how can you tell what the indication of prescribing the Neurontin was? The therapeutic dose for the treatment of epilepsy is 900 to 1800mg a day divided into three times a day not to exceed 3600 mg per day. If you come to our facility on 300mg at night, this clearly indicates that the drug was not given for the two recommended doses so therefore, it can be assumed it was given for insomnia- which we do not treat at our facility. The Neurontin would be canceled and we would observe for signs and symptoms of withdrawal for the next 5 days.
Does this sound reasonable and do you know of a substitution for the treatment of diabetic neuropathy that is less abused in the jail setting?
Christy

Well, you’re not alone, Christy! Gabapentin is one of the most abused and diverted drugs at all correctional facilities that I know of! (I’m going to use the generic term “gabapentin” interchangeably with the brand name “Neurontin” in this article). In fact, I was recently in a meeting with the commissioner of a certain state’s Department of Corrections to give an update on medical services in his prisons and the very first question he asked was about gabapentin. Gabapentin! Think of all the things he could have been concerned about—Hepatitis C for example—and instead, he asked about the security problems caused by gabapentin diversion.

In my experience, gabapentin is one of the “Big Three” non-DEA regulated drugs with the potential for diversion and abuse in a prisons and jail. The other two are Seroquel and Trazodone. The important difference is that Seroquel and Trazodone both allow easy substitution of another, less abused, cousin. Gabapentin, not so much.  More on that later.

In order to get a handle on gabapentin, I think it is important to understand where it came from and why it has not approved by the FDA for most of the reasons it is prescribed nowadays. B_beuRNW8AEYOgn

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