Pharmacology - pregabalin and benzodiazepine potentiation

[Politicalchalk]

Hope your day is going well!

SWIM's doctor prescribed 150mg pregabalin twice a day. After that was not effective, SWIM was prescribed .5mg clonazepam: 1 in AM, 1.5 before bed.
At doses of about 600mg, SWIM noticed anxiolytic effects and a moderate degree of "drug liking." In the PI sheet, it states that preliminary abuse tests showed a high degree of "drug liking" effects among post-BZD abusers. Over time, such effects merely faded away.

So SWIM poses 2 questions:

1. Pregabalin, in at least some way, affects GABA receptors and produces mild BZD effects for at least some time. SWIM still has some pregabalin left over, and wonders if combining the two (either at the same time, or pregabalin 30-60mins before BZD) would produce greater effects? If SWIM is not mistaken, pregabalin is converted into GABA at some point, although SWIM is 100% positive.

2. After SWIM noticed a tolerance of sorts build up, use was discontinued for a while, hoping that tolerance would go back down (a la BZD or opiates). However, this was to no avail, and even though SWIM has not dabbled with pregabalin in a long time, doses of up to 800mg simply do not produce the desired effect. Does anyone have a theory on this peculiar occurance? Why wouldn't tolerance go down?

It is also useful to note that in america, pregabalin is considered C-V, meaning the gov't recognizes there's a slim potential for abuse, but mostly it's controlled because it's chemistry is merely SIMILAR to drugs with higher abuse potentials. For comparison, diphenoxylate (anti-diarrehal with no euphoric effects) is schedule V because it's chemically similar to meperidine (pethidine).

[JaWill88]

swim would also like to know about potentiation between pregabalin and benzos (clonazepam in particular as he was just recently perscribed some and his mom has some that she gives him sometimes) because pregabalin is very similar to gabapentin and there is lots of that laying around the house. anyone have any input on this??

[Politicalchalk]

Hi JaWill88 -- Are you SURE that it was your mother that gives you get controlled meds? You may want to edit your post not to mention sources. Pregabalin is considered to be a stronger, faster form of gabapentin, useful specifically in neuropathic pain which doesn't respond to other types of alangesics. SWIM's heard plenty of anecdotal stories about such and such, but little clinicl evidance for anything other than "neuralgic" pain, if they still use that term anymore.