Mixing pregabilin and opioids possibly fatal... even if the doctor said to!

[foxgrove]

I just stumbled upon a lovely piece of research that has scared me a little.  It seems that Lyrica on it's own is fairly safe but when prescribed alongside an opioid, it can cause death... they believe it may have something to do with depressing the breathing and causing the person to asphixate.  A Canadian study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine studied over 1400 overdose deaths where both pregabilin (Lyrica) and opioids had been prescribed and over 5000 patients who were only prescribed opioids for their control group.  They found that there was an increased risk of death at any dosage of pregabilin but once it rose above 300mg, the risk was twice that of a regular opioid prescribed patient!

I don't know how many of you are prescribed both but it sounds like over 50% of Ontario folks who are prescribed pregabilin are also prescribed opioids just as I was.  Talk to your doctor and see if there is a med change in your future!

https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2018/8/21/studies-warn-of-pregabalin-deaths

[Robby]

Thanks for sharing.   

[denny]

I have 2700mg gabapinton. Isn't lyrical the same thing?

I'm down to 1-15mg SR morphine/day.
Doc was making noises like morphine is going to go away so I'm beating him to the punch.
If I can prove morphine has nothing to do with my weight loss maybe I keep it.
Can't get below 1/day.

[foxgrove]

Well, pregabilin and gabapentin are not the same medication and while they do some of the same things and are kissing cousins to each other, I don't see any reason to jump to that conclusion.  Are you still functional at that low dosage?  Man, that's quite the dose alteration... isn't that less than half of what you were on?

[denny]

Yeah,but it wasn't hard over time. It's just I can't stand having none.
I wonder how long it would take to satisfy him?

There just ain't enough weed here to do it!

[foxgrove]

Well... I don't know what your specific case will require... I'm thinking STRONG stuff... but I would imagine many of us would require some pretty strong "medication" to match what we are already on.  I don't know enough about the stuff to comment on whether or not it would do the trick but if the docs give me the go-ahead, I'm willing to try.

[denny]

I should add-im doing it,I ain't digging it!-.
I'll tell you right now,it's NOT the morphine.
It's a shame i have to go through this to prove it.

[foxgrove]

Crappy.  I sure don't doubt that it's the friggin Lyrica.  Some days you just wonder what those chemists are thinkin!