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Fibromyalgia -- Need help on how to handle severe pain
Fibromyalgia | Last Active: Oct 29, 2023 | Replies (156)Comment receiving replies
I've been on Cymbalta for years, it's the least of my worries. Although I've been on many antidepressants through my life. I have gotten off of it before (80mg) and there are ways to do it properly to lessen withdrawl (using another antidepressant to help wean off or taking half of a capsule when you get down to 20mg). It's worth trying, but keep in mind that the first 2 weeks might be difficult, for me when I try a new antidepressant it gives me anxiety. This is not common. But I stuck through it and it helped my mental health for 3 years. I think it may be helping fibromyalgia pain to some degree.
For me, 40mg cymbalta, 150mg lyrica, 50mg x 2 tramadol provides some relief but was recently diagnosed with RA so none of those help with the joint pain.
My psychiatrist and therapist both recommended trying Low Dose Naltrexone when I only had the Fibromyalgia diagnosis. Maybe that would be a good option to try for you? It's newer but has been showing promising results. I am thinking about switching from Tramadol to LDN.
Replies to "I've been on Cymbalta for years, it's the least of my worries. Although I've been on..."
I have fibromyalgia and take LDN. I find it works really well for me, but mostly for fatigue and not really for pain, so I don’t know that swapping tramadol for pain would be as helpful but at the same time there are others out there for whom it’s helped more with pain.
For me, pain from central sensitivity syndrome, POTS and inflammatory arthritis affects me more—the LDN was started to see if it would help with my fatigue (it did) and reduce pain sensitivity (not sure yet), but fingers are crossed.
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I recently started on LDN. One day at .5mg and had more pain so pharmacist recommended reducing to 1/4 of the pill, or .125mg for a few days. When I increased to .250mg, I had severe insomnia. After two days, I stopped the LDN to see if my insomnia would improve. It didn't, but I'm waiting to restart the LDN because I have surgery coming up in two weeks, and I'd have to stop it again one week before surgery. I'll try again after my surgery. I'm not taking any other drugs for fibro except for some CBN/THC gummies that I started 3 days ago, one hour before bed. They are helping a little bit with my sleep.