Cymbalta

[sunkacola]

As one who has had chronic insomnia all of my life, (literally....I had it as an infant), I know that no one "cure" works for everyone. In the course of my life I have tried probably hundreds of things that are supposed to help and none of them did, not even a little bit. Ditto with nightmares, which I also have had starting from when I was a baby. No point in trying to figure out why, it's just what I have had to deal with.

I finally some time ago started taking a medication which is not actually a sleep medication, but which has worked for many years now to help me stay asleep at night. I still get nightmares, but not as many, and I actually sleep enough hours to be restful almost every night, which after decades of being chronically sleep deprived was like a miracle.

Not that I am advocating for medication. I think it makes sense to try everything else first and only use medication as a very last resort, and only if the insomnia is truly interfering seriously and regularly with your life. After being sleep deprived all the time for 30 years, I was pretty unstable emotionally, as one will be if there's never enough sleep, so the medication changed my life for the better and I will never stop taking it.

All this just to say..... if you have chronic insomnia, try everything, and find something that works no matter what it is because if you never have enough good sleep you cannot really function very well in the world. If insomnia is only occasional, it's better if you don't take medication for it, because in the long run that is not good for you. Just be glad that it only happens occasionally.

 

[longtimer]

I hate this drug - I tried to go off it because the side effects were brutal, I reduced bead by bead for 4 years and then my pain got worse and now my dose is increased again because the doctor says I need it. If I wasn't going off another drug right now, I'd try to get off this again and will again.There is a group called Cymbalta Hurts Worse on FB that is a support group for people who want to get off of this medication.

 

[sunkacola]

I hate this drug - I tried to go off it because the side effects were brutal, I reduced bead by bead for 4 years and then my pain got worse and now my dose is increased again because the doctor says I need it. If I wasn't going off another drug right now, I'd try to get off this again and will again.There is a group called Cymbalta Hurts Worse on FB that is a support group for people who want to get off of this medication.

Cymbalta didn't work for me, either. I tried it a year ago on the suggestion of my doctor. It removed my pain almost entirely.....for a month. Then stopped working, and the pain was back to what it had been before I started taking it. So my doc increased the dosage, which didn't reduce my pain at all but did create a whole host of highly unpleasant side effects. I continued it for another 2 months just to see if the side effects would diminish or it would start reducing my pain levels, and when it didn't help my pain and the side effects kept getting worse I quit taking it.
It took almost three months for all of the side effects to go completely away. I wouldn't ever recommend Cymbalta (duloxetine) to anyone. But....... there are people who have said that it works for them. Everyone's different.

 

[Edit]

for me Cymbalta was describe not only because it the fibro but the major depression. I had that when I got breast cancer in 1994 and one year later my 19 years old only son committed suiced . after that I had a few nerve breaks down , I tried to killed myself etc.... that is was one of the reason Cymbalta had describe for me. I don't know it is works with my fibro pain , because I got it much earlier than I was diagnosed with this terrible illness. My psychiatrist and the rheumatologist both said I have to take Cymbalta look like maybe all my life. Any opinion from you guys?