I have taken Cymbalta for the past three years with good success. It does a great job on my neuropathic pain and I do get an evening out of my mood with it. It does make me sleepy and I have gained 30lbs with it.

My wife tried it and even with good pain relief had to stop because she was having trouble urinating [a common problem with it].

It seems to be a med that many people can't tolerate but gives very good pain relief for those that can tolerate it.

My experience with Cymbalta has been very good. I've been taking it for 3 years or so, and I've found it works very well for my depression! As good, or better than Prozac, which was one of the best anti-depressants I had taken up to now. I'm a veteran CP'er like many others here. I've been taking MS Contin and Lortab 10's for a couple of years now, and have weaned off both in the last month. I do believe the pain killer benefits of Cymbalta is helping at this time. While I'm not completely painfree, I have many pain generators, I find my pain levels tolerable.

Personally speaking, it has usually taken 3-4 weeks of sometimes unpleasant side effects to put up with, before the full benefit could be found. Sometimes it simply didn't work, but I firmly believe that in order to know if a med is going to work, you have to take it for more than a couple of days...IMHO.

I wish you the best in finding what works for you Steff!
~Kimmy

My pharmacist says this is another drug that either works for you or doesn't, either helps you feel good or makes you sick.

It did the latter for me. It was not a good experience. It didn't help in any way. I hope it continues to helps others, though. I have a natural aversion (allergy) to most medications.

TC
JD

My Nuerosurgeon wont prescribe it to any of his patients . Made me go crazy

I take 90 mgs and have for a year but more for depression than for pain. It has not helped for pain. Same with Lyrica but the docs want me to stay on both saying that I would feel the difference if I went off of them. I am considering have a SCS implanted and if I get some relief from that, then we would look at my current meds. So I guess I will wait bringing up another talk about Cymbalta and Lyrica until decisions are made on the implant.

Take care,
Nancy-H

I've been taking Cymbalta for over 3 yrs now. Only 30mgs at bedtime. It took my right butt cheek pain away instantly. Recently I developed really bad anxiety and panic attacks, my PCP upped it to 40mgs saying "I was getting a two for one med with cymbalta", and my pain doc decided to increase it to 60mgs at bedtime thinking 40mgs would do nothing to help. I couldn't handle 60mgs, it kept me up all night long with insomnia and sleepy all day after being on it for a month.

I thought it would be easier just to have me take it in the am, but pain doc said, "no" and put me back on 30mgs at bedtime. For me it works in low doses on my nerve pain. My moods(depression, anxiety and panic) it has not helped.

Good Luck,
Bec

I've took Cymbalta for at least 3 years now. I couldn't tell it was doing anything for me & my Dr. just upped my dose another 30 mgs. so I am getting 90 mgs a day now. It doesn't help my nerves any that I can tell but for depression it may be helping some. I don't sleep any better on it at all. We seem to be a little different on these drugs.
Fancylady

Cymbalta (60 mg twice a day) decreased my appetite, which was a great side effect for me.

I can't say that it decreased my overall pain level, but it did a great job controlling the intermittent "shooters" than I get (a 5 second zap of pain level 10) over and above my regular /constant pain. It also worked well on my depression.

It did make me sleepy.

I stopped it because of pressure from my husband who felt it "made me crazy" because I forced him to go to marraige counseling in an attempt to get control over one aspect of my life (You don't want to know how unsuccessful that counseling has been )