Joseph K. Vaughan, Jr., M.D.
Fort Worth, TX
903-714-9044
Transcript: Lyrica versus Neurontin
In my opinion, a lot of patients who have facial pain syndromes continue to do quite well on Neurontin. In fact, the newer form of Neurontin, Lyrica, I find often causes side effects at lower doses and side effects even at higher doses when its been successful which prohibited it being used as freely and as generously as Neurontin has been used for facial pain patients.
One problem with facial pain patients is that after a period of months or years, there can be a recurrence of pain and the convenience of just raising the dose of Neurontin makes it a very nice choice of medicine for those patients. This is often prohibited by using Lyrica because the side effects will often prohibit going up on the dose of the medication.
In select patients, Lyrica can be quite helpful but I find Neurontin, by and large, to still be a better, easier to use medication for the majority of my facial pain patients.