A Plan Goes Awry
It has finally dawned on me…remember that my GP, Mommy and I are using me as a lab rat for my treatment plan. This could be the reason that I’m feeling worse (inside, not necessarily pain-wise) than I ever have before (except perhaps after an operation where a knife-wielding surgeon has carved up parts of my body)!
The plan is/was to replace Sertraline AND Lyrica with just Cymbalta:
1. maintain Lyrica dosage – 150 mg am & pm (til step 6);
No problem with this part of the plan.
2. stop taking the Prednisolone;
No problem here, either
3. Wean off Sertraline over the week;
Slowly becoming more irritable (or so I have been told!)
4. no anti-depressant for one week;
Really irritable, some collapsing on the floor in tears, really tired – this would be when I posted the SQUISH picture, and started the Things I Have Lost series
5. 4 weeks of 30mg Cymbalta;
No real help on this minimal dosage, still really tired, not quite as much crying, can’t be bothered with much, lots of pain EVERYWHERE! – and that would be The Mess That Blubbered
6. 4 weeks on 60mg Cymbalta – NOW:
Not impressed with Cymbalta as an anti-depressant (not even up to the FM dosage yet), feeling nothing but exhausted ALL the time, really noticing temperature changes within my own body
So now, I’m supposed to increase the Cymbalta again while reducing my Lyrica but I really can’t see how the Cymbalta is going to help me with pain management when it can’t even cope with the depression in my body, and it appears to be making a lot of symptoms worse
And I’m just not sure where to go from here…
Posted on June 27, 2012, in Depression, Fibromyalgia, Prescription medication, Things I Have Lost and tagged Antidepressant, bệnh đau cơ xơ, chronic illness, chronic pain, Conditions and Diseases, Cymbalta, 線維筋痛, 纤维肌痛, Duloxetine, Fibromyalgia, Fibromyalgie, General practitioner, La fibromyalgie, pain, Prednisolone, Pregabalin, sertraline, فيبروميالغيا, פיברומיאלגיה. Bookmark the permalink. 19 Comments.
I had major withdrawals when I went off lyrica. They were horrible and I craved it all the time. Much luck to you. Hope it goes ok!
The way this is going I may not even get to the weaning off Lyrica part – the team is going to have to re-evaluate our plan next time I’m at the doctors.
God you are writing about my life …. exactly :/
I know it’s horrible right now, but maybe if you keep the mindset that it’s only temporary… I can get through almost anything if it’s temporary. If this treatment plan doesn’t work, will you go back to the former plan? Sending you {{gentle hugs}}…
I’ve got two more weeks at this stage of OUR plan, then we may have to re-evaluate. I felt better on the previous treatment plan but it was still nowhere good enough for me to go to work and be a lawyer.
Just to let you know, the higher the dose of Lyrica I was on the more suicidal depressed I became & antidepressants did not help. It wasn’t until I fired my doctor & started weaning myself off from it that I started to feel better.
By the way I am on Cymbalta now & they gave me Amitriptyline to help me get REM sleep, which I was not getting. The pain in better but the fatigue is still killing me. (They thinking iron deficiency anemia & lack of cortisol (adrenal gland) are probably related to that.) Hopefully they will figure out how to treat that.
I too have been taken off Sertraline to be put on Cymbalta.
First step: cold turkey off 300mg Sertraline. NOT NICE, MOODY, SOOKY BITCH!
Then slowly increase Cymbalta, starting at 30mg for 2 weeks, now I have been on 60mg for 10 days, then up to 120mg in another 1-2 weeks depending on side effects.
I have had the worst couple of months, winter doesn’t help, neither does having Ross River Virus on top of Fibro and CFS/ME.
I have everything crossed (very hard to walk like that! lol) that the Cymbalta will start to work soon.
The drs seem to play hit and miss with me too, as if we don’t matter. I would like to see them spend a week in our lives, I think their attitude would completely change!
Good Luck with your “experimenting” with tablets.
Gentle hugs, keep up the great work xo
I’d rather they play hit and miss than do absolutely nothing – please let me know how the 120mg goes as you’ll be getting there before me.
Okay
never heard of Cymbalta being used for depression I thought it was for inflammation i might be confusing it with some other medication. I take Savella and it is the second medication specifically for FM it only works in 50% of patients but it has helped me to get a part of my life back, and it has allowed me to have a little joy in life that I couldn’t grasp before. I don’t have a team of doctors but I have one good one who cares about my health so I feel blessed. Good luck in all you do to regain your life. Sending lots of soft healing hugs your way. Lori
Cymbalta was originally for depression but research found it helped with FM so I hoped to kill two birds with one (inexpensive) stone – still hoping!
I feel for you and kudos for trying new things AND sticking it out this long..
I can’t take Lyrica or Cymbalta because of my eye problems, but that’s okay. From reading, those drugs can make cure worse than the disease. The list of major drug interactions tops 200 and the side effects are terrible.
Right now, my drs and I are having a battle concerning seratonin syndrome because I take 200 mg sertraline a day and I take Immitrex for migraines, which I get 1-2 times a week. I’m not giving up the Immitrex (it’s the only thing that works) and I’m willing to skip one dose of tramadol when I take the Immitrex.
Thanks for sharing what you are going through. It means a lot! I hope you feel better soon.
Good luck, I couldn’t take Cymbalta, it made me a cry baby allllll the time!!!!!! It totally worked the opposite way for me! The doctors kept saying you seen really stressed and we feel we have you on the right dose and I just ended up weaning myself off and was back to a much happier me! I am a pretty positive person and it made me sad:( I am taking Nortriptyline instead. Also it took quite a while before it started doing all that too me so keep an eye on yourself! We will for you:) I thought it was just the pain but it wasnt!!
I am and have been on a combo of Lyrica (150 x 2 per day) and Cymbalta (60 mg for almost 4 years and it works great. I did at one point wean off Cymbalta and went to Savella, big mistake! It made me more energetic but very depressed. I went back to Cymbalta and the two control my pain very well. I have hydrocodone for break thru pain when I need it. I need the Lyrica mainly because I have such nerve pain and am hypersensitive to everything. The Cymbalta takes away most the aches and helps with mood too.
It can take awhile to find the right combo, but hang in there and you will.
I know how hard all the experimenting is and I hope you can get your balance right soon. I just wanted to say that I know you are a whiz at your research, but may want some info on my “experimenting”, because some of what you’re being told confuses me. The FM dosage of Cymbalta is actually the lowest possible – 20mg in the U.S. but we don’t have that so we use 30mg here. Anything over that is for depression, so it’s great that you can combine for your needs. What I don’t get is why it’s taking so long to increase your dosage. Coming off, yes, it’s HELL and has to be stepped down, but not up. And the pain relief for FM is not total pain relief – it’s an adjunct to something like Tramadol, or Targin (which is a new form of oxycontone), or even just Panadol Osteo – which is just slow release paracetamol & on PBS. So I’m on 30mg of Cymbalta (tried going off twice and my pain levels went thru the roof), plus 1 x 50 Tramadol daytime, morning and afternoon, then a 100mg SR tablet at night, plus 2 Osteo 3 x daily. Plus one 5mg Valium in the afternoon when the muscles get their tightest. It’s taken a long time to get to my final balance for good FM relief. If I didn’t have Osteo Arthritis back pain and insomnia I’d be right! The point I’m making is you don’t seem to have a large pain relief component in your plan. If Lyrica works for you, good, but it just makes me sleepy! My first GP, when I cried in her office about my aches 30 years ago, said that the first thing we needed to do was give me pain relief. I’m not sure that’s happening for you. I’m only saying all this because you are too valuable to the FM community to needlessly suffer so much that you may have a meltdown! Maybe ask your doctor why it’s taking so long to get pain relief, and what about Tramadol etc.?
I really hope you can get some relief soon.
Oh no, I have taken your advice – I got panadol osteo prescribed (thanks for that info, previously) and take it every three hours; although, depending on how I feel, it might get replaced by panadeine extra or panadeine forte.
I also got some valium to take before bed (but it doesn’t seem to be making too much of a difference).
We don’t want to change too much at any one time as then we won’t be able to know which component of the treatment is actually working – I understand that part and why…I just wish it was a couple of months down the track already!
I might’ve got confused with the cymbalta dosage stuff – I get foogy, too. I’ll have to have another look. Good thing that I’m not in charge of the prescription pad!
I’m more scared of the depression (pre-existing to FM), than the pain, actually, which is why we are concentrating there – before finding the right depression meds, I had stopped totally. Mum had to cook for me (and hang around to make sure I ate), shop for me, bathe me, etc. I NEVER want to go back there. (It brings tears to my eyes just writing down what that time was like)
P.S. Don’t stop giving me your advice – it has been and really is helpful.
That’s why I quit taking Cymbalta. Did you know one of the side-effects is insomnia? Not to mention the sweats and dry mouth. I now take fluoxetine in the morning and amitryptaline at night. Not only does the amitryptaline help with my depression but it also helps me sleep. Hope you get it figured out soon!
WELL;IV BEEN ON ANTI-DEPRESSANTS;SEROXAT;AND XANAX.4 13 YEARS FOR DEPRESSION;NOW IV FOUND OUT IV FM…………….SO OTHER SYMPTOMS STARTED………….FOG……..NOT WANTING TO GO OUT;CANT STAND.HIGH.LOUD NIOSES…..LIGHTS N THE PAIN;I THINK ITS GOOD IM ALREADY ON THESE MEDS…………..AS SOMEHOW THEY HELP;THOU;XANAX…IS VERY ADDICTIVE ;BUT IT HELPS OTHER WISE I NEVER SLEEP………..N TEAR MY HAIR OUT;IM LEARNING.FROM U……………..THANK U;P