19 replies to this topic

[jealbrecht]

Hi All who have tread before me!

Does anyone know what actually happens physiologically with Cymbalta and pain relief? And/or Why, when doing down, we can have more and different pain sensations? Does it quiet down after getting off this?

Thanks for any thoughts! SO glad I found y'all!

[FiveNotions]

Hi JB!
 
You were put on this stuff for pain, not depression or anxiety, so I'm not a good one to answer. (I was put on it to "glue me together" after I was hospitalized for a horrid reaction (the 2d of 2) to generic Teva Wellbutrin (bupropion).

We here on the forum are beginning to believe that the reason for which we were prescribed crapalta likely makes a difference in what our withdrawal/discontinuation/recovery phases are like ...
 
There are a lot of others here who also went on it for pain ... related to fibro, osteo arthritis, back surgery, neuropathy of some sort, etc. They'll be able to give you the info you need.
 
Also, Fishinghat, our resident go-to guy for research articles on these questions, may have something in his "stash" that will apply.

What I can do now is to search our discussion archives and see what I can find. I'll post the links here for you. (You can search the site yourself if you want to. Go to the search box in the upper right of the home page and type in the word(s) you're looking for. One problem with it is that it won't search for words with fewer than five letters.)

[jealbrecht]

FiveNotions, you rock! Thank you.

I just got 'crapalta. Bwahahaha ha! OY.

[FiveNotions]

Here are some links ...

The main thing is that there are other ways to manage pain ... both while you get off the crap, and after you are off it completely... other meds and alternative treatments, like acupuncture, massage, etc. Again, I defer to those here with personal experience.

osteoarthritis pain, later had hip replacement (her second or third!) ... earlier thread by one of our forum "super heroes" -- she's off the stuff now and back to horseback riding... https://www.cymbalta...oman#entry37648

back pain / surgery ... (read esp. posts by LadyNancy) ... https://www.cymbalta...placement +pain

back surgery ... https://www.cymbalta...ic/7657-im-new/

fibro pain ... https://www.cymbalta...th-fibromyalgia

[jealbrecht]

Thanks!

[FiveNotions]

Love it, JB ... "I'm under no obligation to be the person I was five minutes ago" .... I want a t-shirt with that on it ... and a coffee mug ... and business cards !

[thismoment]

Hi jealbrecht

Welcome. Nobody knows exactly how these drugs work. SNRIs like Duloxetine have been demonstrated to alleviate pain and reduce depression and anxiety that may or may not have occurred comorbidly with your pain. Opioids relieve pain. SNRIs are prescribed for pain alone as well.

Both are a gamble. Both lose effectiveness with time and the dosage needs to be increased. Both have significant withdrawal issues.

Having endured the broad-scale effects of Duloxetine and having escaped its mind-altering impact with just a couple of permanent symptoms, I would choose opioids for pain, no question-no doubt-hands down!!

Permit me to give you an analogy for what Duloxetine does to your being: you have a flower garden where all the flowers represent your feelings, your compassion, your sex drive, your self-image, your sense of dignity, your respect for others, your love, your passion for life, your desire to live a long healthy life, and your attachment to loved ones. There are blades of grass among the flowers and that is your pain. You take the Cymbalta Lawn Mower and cut down the blades of grass and ALL the flowers too! Your pain is gone! You will find you simply must withdraw in an attempt to revive elements of who you were.

"I'm under no obligation to be the same person I was five minutes ago." You couldn't be that person even if you wanted to-- without the ability to Time-Travel. But you CAN imagine the person you wish to become, and you can achieve that by creating the required history by how you live (the behaviors you practice) each moment.

Take care.

[BelaLugosisDad]

I was prescribed Cymbalta for anxiety. 2 days after discontinuing it, the 5th of Febuary of this year. I started getting strange pains. They got worse. Headaches, neuropathic pain, chest pain - Bat shit mental pain that defies definition - it's outside of my body. I've spent a total of 5 months in 6 hospitals. I am still here.

 

We've tried reintroducing Cymbalta. SSRI's, AEDs, CCBs, NSAIDs, Opiates, Flurpax, Triptans (did I mention the daily cluster headaches?, it was fun having triptans administered for a cluster headache and then ending up in intensive care on Nitro because my heart didn't take too well to the triptan), over 40 meds in total. I've had celebral epidural blocks. I have weaned off morphine as it doesn't work any more. A tumour has appeared in my hypothalamus. FN, posted a link regarding cell growth in this area.

 

The finger is pointed at Cymbalta. I guess I am unlucky. Noone has a clue how Cymbalta 'works' and they have less off a clue when things go wrong. At the moment it's a question of throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.

 

Cymbalta for pain? No thanks. I would have prefered to go out and buy street heroin for pain. I kid you not. Known profile, known risks, lot's of experience and assistance in discontinuation. Recovery groups, knowledge and support. - None of this is available for Cymbalta apart from this forum.

[thismoment]

BLD

"Cymbalta for pain? No thanks. I would have prefered to go out and buy street heroin for pain. I kid you not. Known profile, known risks, lot's of experience and assistance in discontinuation. Recovery groups, knowledge and support. - None of this is available for Cymbalta apart from this forum."

Absolutely correct!!

The infrastructure is well-established for discontinuation from opioids, and this information needs to be part of Informed Consent before we start any SS/SNRI for pain. Opiates and homo sapiens have a long-standing relationship (for perhaps a couple hundred thousand years), and they work. Yes opiates and opioids are addictive-- so what? So are SS/SNRIs. Subjective morality and addiction have no meaning when it comes to pain and the quality of life.

 

Opiates do NOT have serious side effects taken at therapeutic doses.

 

Opiate- narcotic analgesic derived from the opium poppy (natural); morphine, codeine, for example.

 

Opioid- narcotic analgesic that is at least part synthetic (not found in nature); Oxycontin, for example.

 

Heroin is an opiate, but may be considered an opioid as it is chemically manufactured with molecules from the opium plant used in the process.

[jealbrecht]

@ thismoment, GREAT analogy! Yuppers.

 

@BelaLugosisDad, wow. I am so sorry! I've been having little chest pains, too. It's not my heart, so I just try and breathe through it, and not get scared. Feels like little 'spider' pains.

 

@ everyone! How the heck is this drug still on the market?!?!?! I had NO idea about this when I went on it 3 years ago. good GOD!

[FiveNotions]

At least with heroin, you get a "high" and some "recreational use" .... crapalta, no high, just flat-line zombie and then withdrawal ... I've posted here before that I've seen many comments on other forums from people who've used both drugs, that it's harder to get off Cymbalta than heroin.....

[thismoment]

Why are these drugs still on the market? It has everything to do with profits and the fact that wealth controls power.

[FiveNotions]

JB, a lot of people are working to get it off the market ... there are tons of lawsuits about injuries while taking the drug .. and now a law firm, Knox Ricksen, is taking on the issue of Cymbalta withdrawal harm ... go over to the "Cymbalta in the news" forum ... KR has posted a notice about this. If you are so inclined, I urge you to contact them to sign up. Quite a few of us here have done so, myself included.

[FiveNotions]

Here's the link to the notice from Knox Ricksen ... and TM sums up the answer to your question perfectly ...

https://www.cymbalta...alta-withdrawal

[thismoment]

In the United States there are more than 14,500 specialized drug treatment facilities for those discontinuing opiates and opioids. These facilities provide counselling, behavioural therapy, medication, psychiatric care, case management and other types of services.

 

In the United States there are 0 (zero) specialized drug treatment facilities for those discontinuing SS and SNRIs.

[fishinghat]

Hi All who have tread before me!

Does anyone know what actually happens physiologically with Cymbalta and pain relief? And/or Why, when doing down, we can have more and different pain sensations? Does it quiet down after getting off this?

Thanks for any thoughts! SO glad I found y'all!

 

I have attached a few of the research articles on that subject. But primarily the center on Cymbalta's interaction with  spinal 5-HT2A or α2-noradrenergic receptors. The 5HT2A receptors are regulated by serotonin and the α2-noradrenergic receptors are regulated by noradrenaline. Because Cymbalta helps control both serotonin and noradrenaline it is logical that it would markedly relieve pain systemically. The problem is once the Cymbalta is removed from the spinal cord and other nerves the body has to relearn how to control its own serotonin and noradrenaline. Until then the nerves are susceptible to many other neuroreceptors.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC3171868/

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/25154730

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm...pubmed/24686187

[FiveNotions]

FH, yet more excellent research ... reading one of them now ... if you haven't already, I really think they deserve their own topic, over in Cymbalta in the News" (sure wish we had a forum for "Cymbalta-related Research") ... Cymbalta for pain, and why it's prescribed and why the pain comes back big-time during/after withdrawal must be something a lot of people who visit here want to find out about.

[fishinghat]

Well FN it just won't let me copy it. I opened a new topic and titled it. I then tried to copy the body of the text to the new topic. No problem but when I hit post it says 'this page can not be shown". I will try it again later.  UUUrrrggg

[FiveNotions]

FH, it may be that you got a "time out" on posting a new topic, because you'd just posted that other article ... to which I added a request for a translation for us "mere mortals" ...

[Amysgarden]

Yeah, barf to the whole "Cymbalta for pain" thing! It was the main reason I switched from Paxil, because I was having problems that my pdoc thought was likely fibro. The pain is not as bad now as it was when I first went cold turkey off the crapbalta. It's been almost two months now. Maybe it is not as bad if you do a proper taper. If I had it to do all over, I would have never switched and instead learned to manage the pain in other ways. Emu oil is a great topical for pain, btw.