Has anyone had experience using cymbalta for pain relief?

I am taking cymbalta & not sure if it helps with fibromyalgia or not- had a major flare up yesterday with the cold damp weather & wondering if weather change flares are common for fibro folks-

I use it for Fibromyalgia pain & post surgical neuropathy pain.

I use it for Fibromyalgia pain & post surgical neuropathy pain.

I use it for Fibromyalgia pain & post surgical neuropathy pain.

I use it for Fibromyalgia pain & post surgical neuropathy pain.

I use it for Fibromyalgia pain & post surgical neuropathy pain.

Always Hopeful,
I'm glad you started a new topic dedicated to Cymbalta (generic name: duloxetine). It has been discussed in various discussions throughout Connect by a number of members, like @sandytoes14 @kdubois @jimhd @oldnana @kathyv @lauriedr @jenapower @janie56 to name a few.

Always Hopeful, while we wait for others to join the conversation, can you tell us a bit more about why you are asking about Cymbalta? What type of pain are you managing? Do you already take Cymbalta or has it been recently suggested to you?

@AlwaysHopeful
I take 60 mg of Cymbalta daily for pain relief of fibromyalgia. Most of the time I find it reduces the pain to a manageable amount.
Along with fibro, I have Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) arthritis and degenerative disc disease (DDD) to name a few aliments. A plus for me is that Cymbalta also reduces anxiety. I'm looking forward to your response to Colleen Young's questions and getting to know more about you.

I am taking cymbalta & not sure if it helps with fibromyalgia or not- had a major flare up yesterday with the cold damp weather & wondering if weather change flares are common for fibro folks-

Hi @AlwaysHopeful, the following info should be useful and might help others on this thread, too.

Whether or not Cymbalta (duloxetine) helps a person depends on several factors, including how the person's body metabolizes the medication.

Most medications are metabolized by the body's cytochrome P450 liver enzyme system. This system contains a ton of different enzymes that are basically genes. Whether or not your body metabolizes a medication properly can depend on three things...

1. Whether or not you are taking a medication that inhibits/induces an enzyme that your body uses to metabolize another medication (or even the same medication). (For example, duloxetine is a substrate of the enzymes CYP1A2 and CYP2D6, which means that these two enzymes metabolize duloxetine in your body. But if you take a medication that inhibits (i.e., slows down) those two enzymes, it will cause you to too-slowly metabolize duloxetine, which means that you will not receive the intended effects. Interestingly, duloxetine actually inhibits CYP2D6. Many medications inhibit P450 enzymes; fewer medications induce them.)

2. Whether or not you have P450 liver enzyme polymorphisms, which means that you posses an enzyme or enzymes that are mutated and make you, organically, metabolize some medications too slowly or too quickly. These polymorphisms are not rare. After years of taking duloxetine, Mayo performed pharmacogenomic testing on me and figured out that I was born with CYP1A2 and CYP2D6 polymorphisms, which explained why I never received the pain relief effects from taking it. (The official diagnosis for this is called CYP450 Deficiency.)

3. A combination of numbers 1 and 2 above. Because I was also taking other medications that inhibited my CYP2D6 enzyme, it made the above situation even worse.

Unfortunately, most doctors only have very rudimentary knowledge of the P450 system, and they don't know enough about drug-drug interactions via these enzymes to recognize of suspect these issues. If you suspect this may be an issue for you, you may be best off talking to your pharmacist first.

Here's where you can look at substrate, inhibitor, and inducer medication info: http://www.mayomedicallaboratories.com/it-mmfiles/Pharmacogenomic_Associations_Tables.pdf