How I'm doing on Lyrica / Gabapentin taper

I did quit Gabapentin entirely and went through a week of basically soul-crushing 'hardness' in my entire body.  It was as if a liquid went through me and then turned solid in my veins and muscles.  I was also really, abominably cold.  Like, didn't show my legs for a week straight because I needed clothing to cover them due to cold.  But also terribly hypersensitive to the feeling of clothing, so I basically only wore yoga pants.

Then I went on Lyrica.  It did make me feel like my muscles relaxed.  Although it was like a two-step thing.  I would feel it when I took it (the 25 mg), and it would make me feel something in my forehead and get really tired and kind of dizzy in my thinking.  That  lasted a while - like a few hours.  Then as that slowly subsided over several hours, I got more and more normal feeling. - less body pain, and less forehead pain.  However, My whole body was still incredibly tight due to how I felt after just having weaned off Gabapentin, and that did not go away.  So it was like having less pain on top of tons of pain.  I was wondering why I felt like that but I understand it now.  If I had taken Lyrica without all that excessive tightness from Gabapentin withdrawal it probably would have been better.

Anyways, I went from taking 25 mg Lyrica to 12.5 because of the dizzy tiredness.  I did not get the dizzy tiredness at 12.5  At first it seemed successful on my first dose, then, and perhaps I had poured out more than the time before, I just didn't feel it hardly at all.  Then I got withdrawal symptoms on that smaller dose, and thought, "NAH", and stopped taking it.

So, what occurred after that was interesting withdrawal symptoms- my body got kind of crazy feeling, then subsequently all hard (bad), then the ER thing happened for about a day where my thoughts were kind of flying, and my body STOPPED HURTING.  Then I woke up and felt normal, which for me is calm and back pain.  Which I haven't felt like in a month.  So the withdrawal may be coming to an end.  I'll miss you, ER stuff.  I'll miss how my body didn't hurt.


So, there is a middle ground.  I could have taken around 20 mg.  I think the issue is that it needs to last long enough to completely overlap with the next dose; it can't leave any wiggle room in between the doses.  That is a bit tough for me to figure out because at the 25 mg twice a day dose, I get too tired in the beginning.  (Although I did feel nice and calm for so many hours after that!).  So it's a crapshoot.  And I probably won't ever want to take it for the rest of my life and get addicted to it.