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How Long Does Gabapentin Take to Work?

Gabapentin Dosage

How Long Does Gabapentin Take To Work – Gabapentin Is a very important drug for people who are suffering from epilepsy, as it can lower the possibility of seizures due to the disease. At the same time, it can also lower neuropathic pain, anxiety, and migraines sometimes.

The medicine is not completely safe to use. There are a few side effects and warnings associated with the gabapentin drug. Usually, your doctor will suggest gabapentin if your doctor believes the benefits are overweighting the side effects. 

Even if you are taking medicine, you don’t need to know everything about the medicine. As most people are looking for how long gabapentin takes to work, it becomes our responsibility to discuss these questions.

How much time does gabapentin take to work?

Before we move ahead and talk about how much time gabapentin takes to work, let me tell you, the time gabapentin takes to work is not going to be the same for everyone out there.

A huge number of things can increase or decrease the time gabapentin is going to take to work, for example, the dosage of medicine, any other previous condition, experience with similar medicine, the severity of the symptoms, etc.

In some conditions, for example, neuropathic pain, gabapentin may start working as soon as you take it. But you have to wait for at least three weeks to see the full benefits of the drug. 

Reasons for Slow results

Now, you might ask what the major reasons for the slow results of gabapentin are. Kindly remember that your doctor will start with very small doses of the medicine. Your doctor will gradually increase the dosage with time by looking at the responsiveness of your body and symptoms with the medicine.

For example, if you are taking gabapentin drug for your neuropathic pain, your doctor will start with the 300 mg move dosage a day which will be divided into three times. Within a few weeks, your doctor will keep increasing the dosage, and eventually, you will reach 600 mg Three times a day, and in total, it will reach 1800 mg.

How Long Does Gabapentin Take to Work
How Long Does Gabapentin Take to Work

After that, the work gabapentin will do in the body is not comparable with the initial dose of the first day. Even as per several studies, you might start seeing promising results in neuropathic pain once you have reached the weak one. And the peak results are going to come after four weeks of starting the medicine.

Types of Gabapentin

One more factor which can increase or decrease the time color and tint take to work is the type of medicine. As you know, most medicines have two different types, the first one is extended-release, and another one is immediate release.

For example, you are taking extended-release gabapentin for your neuropathic pain. Then it might start showing Initial results after an hour. At the same time, if you are taking immediate-release, it will start showing initial results within a few minutes of the medicine.

Your doctor will recommend you to take an extended-release or immediate-release type of gabapentin drug. If you have been prescribed an immediate-release tablet, then kindly do not take an extended-release. It might cause several health conditions.

Similarly, if you have been recommended to take immediate release, then kindly do not switch it to extended-release. It may also cause several health conditions.

For example, your doctor suggested you take an immediate release of 300 mg Gabapentin 3 times a day, but you take an extended release. It is going to cause some problems as You will have three doses in your body at one time. 

Do the drugs work?

There are a huge number of people who believe that these medicines do not work as well as the placebo effect. A similar situation is with gabapentin medicine also.

The drug may take more time to work in a person as compared to the average time. In other conditions, it may work faster than average. It depends on the person, and things like this increase the questions like, is it working or the placebo effect is working.

 Don’t worry. There have been more than 35 studies, including 5900 patients suffering from the same conditions, and the results of those studies were promising.

As per those studies, more than 35% of people experience immediate relief from being after shingles once they take medicine. At the same time, the success ratio of the placebo was only 10%. The percentage of 35 later increased to more than 50 once they took medicine for at least two weeks.

These studies proved that gabapentin does work, and it is also better than the placebo effect at the same time. You should not stop taking medicine after hearing anything bad related to the medicine. It may cause several side effects, including a possible risk of seizure.

Takeaways

Gabapentin is a very important medicine for people who are already suffering from neurologic pain or epilepsy. The medicine is known to lower the possibility of any kind of seizure due to epilepsy.

At the same time, it can also lower the neurologic pain caused by several conditions, such as shingles, diabetes, etc. It is available in two different types. The first one is extended-release, and another one is immediate release.

Even though you can receive short-term benefits of gabapentin once you take immediate release medicine, to see the full benefits of the drug, you might have to wait for at least three weeks. 

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Which type of gabapentin drug is best to get faster results?

As for the studies, immediate release of gabapentin is known to provide faster initial benefits. But you should never take medicine or switch the medicine on your own. Your doctor is the best judge. And if you have been prescribed to take extended-release of gabapentin, you should keep taking that medicine; otherwise, it may cause several health problems.

How long do gabapentin drugs stay in the body?

It depends upon the type of gabapentin drug you are taking. For example, extended-release gabapentin drugs are known to stay in the body for at least eight hours. On the other hand, immediate-release gabapentin is known to reach peak blood concentrations in just two or three hours.

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