HEALTH: The Quiet Rise of a Pharmaceutical Star — at what risk?

Monday, November 17, 2025
https://www.offthegridnews.com/pain-free-living-off-the-grid/gabapentin-nation-almost-all-aches-and-irritations-now-get-this-off-label-pill/
 
Gabapentin Nation: Almost All Aches And Irritations Now Get This Off-Label Pill
2025 Nov 11 at 10:31
by Bill Heid
in Pain-Free Living Off The Grid
 

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The Quiet Rise of a Pharmaceutical Star

It didn’t start out this way. Back in the ’90s, gabapentin was just another seizure med. Then came the sales push. The company behind it sent reps and doctors to fancy dinners and “educational retreats,” where talk quietly turned to off-label uses—headaches, mood swings, ADHD, you name it. Eventually, that little scheme cost them almost half a billion in fines. You’d think that would’ve ended the story.

But then the opioid crisis hit. When OxyContin started wrecking lives and headlines screamed addiction and death, doctors needed something—anything—that wouldn’t destroy their patients or careers.

Gabapentin looked like a safe harbor: cheap, not technically addictive, and tolerated well enough. So, when the pain didn’t fit a neat category, gabapentin became the fallback.

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​Seems like an over prescribed med.  Wonder when we’ll see the ads “if you were hurt by Gabapentin, call 1-800-gab-pent to join our class action suit”.  Of course, like all “class actions”, only the lawyers get rich.
 
And, like thalidomide, when do the bad effects become visible?
 
Married to a chronic pain after amputation sufferer, she report that it’s “not very effective and only dulls the pain for an hour”.  If so, why bother?
 
Wonder when we will see the studies about ill-effects and Big Pharma abuses?
 
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