A short course of the medication for post-surgical pain is unlikely to be a serious risk, either in humans or dogs. The patients in the study were taking the drug over a long period of time (months or years) for chronic pain.
Had it added to paroextine by a psych nurse after finishing a project for the boss from hell. Had the kind of diffuse chronic pain associated with depression and Kohut's "triple split" personality organization which I knew I had then but didn't know why
Can't say gabapentin really helped with the pain but I sure slept well and...
I had terrible social anxiety earlier in my life but in this phase I was getting up every morning and calling people up and down the east coast first thing and working my way to the west coast with my BD guy, never sold anything but boy people told us a lot of things they shouldn't have told us (e.g. EADS was way over its head in a project for the NSA) and I can't go to my grave and say I didn't give a serious try for the idea I had.
Settled in a real job in a real office, doc said I should try quitting paroxetine. Wasn't hard at first but there was that day I got furious about the messes in the house and got 40,000 steps cleaning without going outside and that time I got a psychogenic fever and lost 15 pounds in 3 weeks and kept it off for a year. Then that guy in the upper left corner of that card went through a series of transformations like a character in an anime: first a cute little bunny, then an ugly thing the size of a large bear, then a giant robot maybe 30 feet tall, finally a Godzilla kind of creature maybe 300 feet tall. He posted plenty on HN using my account and made trouble for myself and other people until a crisis broke and I was like "WTF happened there?" and kinda retreated for a year until Lezengreber's book fell into my hand and revealed how I was different from other people (schizotaxia) and why I had that triple split.
If anything good came out of that time it was that I learned my chronic pain was due to TMJ and managed it and now my jaw bugs me maybe one day a month.
Quit smoking pot, had trouble sleeping, would get up in the morning and experience "paranoia towards objects" and have plates jump out my hands like a ouija board and bonk my head four times in a row getting something out of the fridge, it seemed like my wife was always trying to stand exactly where I was going to go next when I was getting ready in the morning. Presented really bad at my doc and got put on a tiny dose of quietapine at night. Helped with the sleep and had only one little bit of 'psychosis' since and been very easy to live with.
I've been worried about the long term effects of gabapentin so I have been backing off my dose. I'm worried about the quietapine too for that matter.
Got friends though who take benzodiazepines for anxiety and those look really dreadful. That really arrests your development, people like that will have the same conversation with you that they had 12 years ago and at least I am not like that.
I know someone who made it to 92 or so with dementia and he was a really nice guy who was totally confused but good natured and easy to live with. My worst fear is that I lose my compensation for my schizotypy (verbal IQ too high to measure really seems to help with that) when I get older and get really paranoid and mean so I do try to develop habits of benevolence but I don't have the deep practice that guy had.
Can say though that I have zero anxiety now I feel like I am an expression of a principle and, on a certain level, can't be defeated. Don't know how much is the meds and how much is maturity.
>it seemed like my wife was always trying to stand exactly where I was going to go next when I was getting ready in the morning
That one might have been real. All I had to do was pick up a pot of boiling water or turn around after taking a kitchen knife from the drawer and mine would teleport directly behind me.
It work for cats, but not equally for all, some are less responsive. Also, maybe I will say obvious things, but - cats require bigger dose per kilo than dogs, vet doctor can calculate it for you; and it is advised that you start giving it to cat a day in advance.
