Howdy y’all, hope everyone is having as good of a Sunday as you can. You might have seen me talk about my…rather weird issues here before, and I’ve seen some of y’all mention before that you are taking memantine.
I am very fortunate to have an open minded pain management doctor, and she was also aware of the small but promising data we have on memantine - which might be all we ever get, since it’s an older generic and not a money maker.
My two main sources of pain are both neuropathic; my L5/S1 disc prolapsed badly twice before I got a fusion in 2021, and then following the fusion I developed a bony “outcropping” that grew out of the area of my Stryker Tritanium implant. It’s pushing directly on my right S1 nerve root. I had a spinal cord stimulator (Abbot Eterna w/Penta paddle) implanted in 2023, but with my extraordinarily bad luck that resulted in a severe allergic reaction to the glue they used to close me up - T10 to T7. This caused a lot of tissue damage, including nerve damage, and it’s been very difficult to treat. Compounded topical cream helps some (containing gabapentin/lidocaine/prilocaine/ketoprofen/cyclobenzaprine), but pressure and just using the muscles in that area can make it flare up easily. My SCS also doesn’t fully cover my leg because I’ve had so much nerve damage at the root we lost some conductivity.
I’m now taking Lyrica, ER hydromorphone, and baclofen daily and I am still struggling. I figured why not try memantine, especially since ketamine has helped me in the past. I’ve started at 5mg 2x daily, and I’m a few days in. So far, none of the scary side effects! A couple of mild headaches. For those of you that have a memantine success story, I would love to hear more! How long did it take for you to see some results? What did those results look like?
Thanks so much and as always, keep on truckin’. 🤠