A pain-relieving medication might be safer for seniors than first thought.

A new study published Jan. 7 in the Annals of Internal Medicine says Gabapentin is widely used to help treat chronic pain and nerve pain, particularly as an alternative to opioid painkillers.

However, some have argued that gabapentin shouldn’t be prescribed to seniors, as it might increase their risk of damaging falls.

Those concerns are baseless, according to the study.

The study’s results show that gabapentin “was associated with fewer fall-related health care visits and … was not associated with an increase in more severe fall-related events,” concluded a research team led by Dr. Alexander Chaitoff, an assistant professor of internal medicine with the University of Michigan. 

“These considerations should be incorporated into conversations with patients who are considering starting gabapentin treatment,” the team added.

Nearly 50 million prescriptions for gabapentin were written in 2020, but by 2022 those scripts had fallen by 20% after several studies found that the drug might increase fall risk for seniors.

Chaitoff and his colleagues suspected that this risk might be overblown, given that the painful conditions for which gabapentin is prescribed also increases risk of falls.

“Neuropathy, the most common indication for which gabapentin is prescribed, is also a known contributor to adverse health events, especially falls,” the researchers noted.

The researchers decided to compare the safety of gabapentin against that of duloxetine, another drug prescribed for nerve pain that doesn’t have the same reputation for increasing fall risk.

The team gathered data for more than 57,000 seniors 65 or older prescribed either gabapentin or duloxetine between Jan. 2014 and Dec. 2021 for nerve pain related to diabetes, shingles or fibromyalgia.

The results showed that gabapentin users actually had a 48% lower overall risk of any falls, compared to those taking duloxetine.

However, there was no difference between the two drugs when it came to the risk of experiencing a severe fall.

“Although we cannot claim that gabapentin does not lead to higher risk for falls at any time, our study does suggest that the risks of gabapentin as they relate to fall risk in the first 6 months of initiation are not greater, or potentially favorable, versus an alternative medication that might be prescribed instead,” the research team concluded.