4th day on Cymbalta and I need advice

[Hippie]

I've been on a low dose of gabapentin for a while now and that has helped keep the pain manageable, so it was mostly fatigue and weakness that was affecting my functionality.

I started 30mg Cymbalta 4 days ago: Holy side effects! More pain in new places(at least twice as much as before), crazy new kind of headache that won't go away, dizzy, nauseous, anxious, shaky, I can only sleep for 6 hours(before I would sleep 8-10). I have important things to do that I can't make myself do. I haven't been able to force myself to eat today.

I started this medication at the recommendation of a psychiatrist who did a consult for my family physician at the request of my insurance company. Essentially if I didn't follow the recommendation then I would be deemed not following my treatment plan and my insurance coverage would end.

I don't know what do. I know that the initial side effects don't necessarily last but I can't imagine feeling like this for another week or 3. I just want to feel like myself again.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

 

[sunkacola]

Stop taking it. It is clearly not the right thing for you. It may be true that the side effects diminish with time but if they are that severe, it is just not right for you. I also had severe side effects with it, stopped taking it after 6 days, and the doctor told me I did the right thing. There's no point in your suffering on and on for weeks just to see if it gets better in time.

 

[Forgetmenot]

My dad tired that it made him very ill.he was given it to stop his shakes.they made them 3 times as bad .stick with the gabbipintin.i take that and it helps.

 

[erober03]

I take it and do not get the side affects. But before that they had me on some stuff that really messed me up. I called the Dr. and told her that I can't take it and she changed it for me. The fact you tried and it did not work is good enough just call Dr. to keep them in the loop and they will back you up.

 

[moe1959]

Everyones dicfrent, but for me it was poisen. Dont suffer any longer.

 

[Sagey]

A lot of the medications for fibromyalgia do have these types of side affects in the beginning.
4 days is really not enough time to evaluate the med.
A lot of them cause nausea , shakiness and dizziness in the beginning, but if you try to tolerate them, it may pass.
I would hate for you to not get the benefits that u might get by quitting early.
If they are totally intolerable then I would stay stop
But if u have to work and u just can't with the side effects.
You might need to take off , so u are able to continue your med and see if it helps.
Ive had some meds where your vomiting ,and your blood pressure rises and are totally dangerous.
Some side effects are just uncomfortable and u need to push thru to give the med a chance.

 

[Christen033]

I completely 120% agree that four days is not enough of a time period to judge whether it's going to work for you. Give it three months. Yes,new medications are a lifechanging event. It's okay. People will understand. It will pass. Your body is getting used to such a strong medication for such a strong and miserable sickness.

Again, I agree some side effects are dangerous and some are just uncomfortable. Good choice of words here, Sagey. It doesn't sound like these that you are complaining of, Hippie are dangerous. Push through! It's so much better to know you tried everything.

 

[medicmurphy]

Only you can make the decision to discontinue this med. Have you been on an SSRI or SNRI before? If so, how did you tolerate it? What you are describing is indeed side affects. However, sometimes these side affects can be overwhelming which only increase in severity the longer you're on it or with increased doseage. On a scale of 1-10, how bad would you rate the discomfort? This may help you decide what to do...d/c it or continue. Patients with FM often can not tolerate normal starting doseages of meds. Because of this some Dr choose to start their patients on much smaller doseages, titrating them as tolerated. Some even have medications prepared by compounding pharmacies. Our systems are very sensitive. The best thing to do is contact your Dr and explain what you're going through. He may suggest you dial down the doseage and work up from there. Yes, generally we must push through some nasty side affects but, sometimes those side affects are far too uncomfortable or in some cases dangerous. Remember, you don't have to be a marytr or a hero. You can get where you need to be, you just may need to take a detour. Cheers.

 

[Hippie]

Update: My doctor was onboard with stopping the Cymbalta. I had super fun withdrawl symptoms at my appointment ( I had full on body shakes, lots of weeping and super fragmented thoughts) because I had to not take my dose that morning so that I was able to leave the house. As it was my body was screaming at me the entire time I was out of the house that it was a terrible idea, like I was under attack or something. 27 hours after my last dose of Cymbalta.

MedicMurphy: I don't tolerate medication well in general. I'm not sure of the classes of medication I have tried. I was on Lyrica for 3-4 months during my last crisis a 5 years ago(I have almost no memory of that time, except for losing neck control, and periods of time). I tried amlodipine for a few months, it didn't help the pain and gave me a new kind of pain. I'm currently a month into amitriptyline: the first 2 weeks were horrible on 10mg (the smallest pill available) cutting the pill in half and changing the timing to earlier evening made food possible around lunch time. And again I have a new kind of headache that makes things I normally enjoy very unpleasant. And anxiety. I can tolerate the side effects, but I don't see how I get more energy if I can't get enough calories into my body. I already have enough barriers to food(intolerances, energy to make nutritious food, money to pay for nutritious take out, lack of hunger signal) and now food just sounds like a horrible idea. I usually love food.
All of the medication I have tried I have started on the lowest dose. I seem to be hyper sensitive. It would be great if they made smaller doses. I think the cymbalta might be good for me if I could start at 5 mg instead of 30mgs. If I wanted to try that I would have to
After the amitriptyline my doctor is giving up on medications for me. While I would love to take something that makes me feel better, or more functional I don't see the point of suffering for 6 months per medication when my last 2 episodes I was back to functional in 1.5-2 years and only once I got off of whatever medication they made me try.

Sagey: I have been on medical leave since mid July 2016. I have shown marked improvement, and then I was put on medication and my functionality took a huge nose dive, with increased pain, and incapacitating anxiety. I feel like I'm constantly trying to dig myself out of a hole that the medication keeps on shoveling dirt into.

 

[medicmurphy]

Judging by your hypersensitivity to meds, it was an excellent decision to d/c it. You cld easily develop seretonon syndrome. THAT is not good. I too am hypersensitive to the SSRI and SNRI drug classes. I react similar to you which is why I take only pain meds. I make a one month RX last for two months. I'm still hoping to find the hidden treasure mother lode answer to all our woes. Hope is a good thing.

 

[Catamountgurl]

i have been on effexor xr since i was diagnosed 18 years ago. one of the side effects was drowsiness so my dr had me take it at night. it turned out that it was like a sugar pill and kept me up all night. i was 14 at the time so my mom took me back to the dr and we had to change the time when i took the medicine to first thing in the morning.
I have been on the effexor for most of my 18 years of fibro but a couple years back i was having a bad flare so my dr reccommended switching to cymbalta which was a nightmare bc i had to wean off my high dose of effexor (as i aged and gained weight i had to keep increasing my dosage) and then i had to wean onto the cymbalta. i felt that my flares were worse for that time period but once i was weaned onto the correct dosage and gave it a few week to work i realized that it didn't help me any better than the effexor. so when new insurance went into effect the cymbalta was too expensive so i did the whole weaning process again and have been back on effexor since.
also did you stop the gabapentin when you started the cymbalta? if so you could be in withdrawl from the gabapentin. if i forget to take my gabapentin or run out i feel like how you're explaining. work with your dr and explain how you're feeling the dr works for you make her listen.

 

[medicmurphy]

I'm starting back on Cymbalta again. Was on it a year ago and stopped because of side affects and it did not help the pain etc. I'm on day 3 and I feel grim, to say the least. Headache, nausea and mild anxiety are the main complaints. I'm going to try for 2 weeks. If the symptoms get worse I will contact my Dr and discuss what to do. The side affects of these SSRI and SNRI drugs don't agree with me. I need help as I now have CF along with the Fibro. What to do??? I want some quality of life back.

 

[Christen033]

Try to give it 2 months of a test run. Good luck. Keep us posted.

 

[DoobieBrother]

Good advice: talk to your doctor before altering your meds. Fwiw I was on it as well, for about a year, but it did nothing to help with the pain.

 

[Sagey]

Hi Hippie,

You might have to try taking a break from medications, if they are not improving your symptoms.And try some natural things for awhile.

It's funny but if you have Fibromyalgia long enough it's kinda cyclical, because we start on all these medications to help us,

And then we find they are not working great anymore. So we go off our meds little by little and try alternative therapies.

And we try natural supplements and a healthy diet.

There is no one right answer. You have to find whatever makes you feel better to tolerate the chronic pain.

Even getting a hobby and keeping busy helps because it distracts the mind from the pain.

Don't give up completely on meds,later u might want to go back and give it another try and see what happens.


Sagey