http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/pf...o-pain-studies

This was posted in the RSD forum. Seems pertinent here too.

This is really fascinating. I have been wondering about the huge marketing campaign for Lyrica aimed at Fibromyalgia patients, especially since Fibro is such a "soft" diagnosis, without a definitive test or cause. I am not implying that it isn't real, only that I don't know how you market a medication specifically for such a mysterious condition.
I know that a lot of neuropathy patients get moved from Neurontin to Lyrica. Since they are related, does this say anything about the effectiveness of Gabapentin? I definitely notice an increase in burning and zaps if I forget my bedtime pill, so I assume it does something.
With my new symptoms of burning over most of my body I was wondering if it was time to increase my dosage of 1800mg per day.

This post has information on both gabapentin and Lyrica:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post829091-8.html

Recent metastudies have shown only about 30% of patients
see any effectiveness with gabapentin.

I'll be putting the Lyrica studies up there on that post soon.

While looking for other news articles about this topic I found THIS:
http://www.wellnessresources.com/stu...rain_synapses/

Still we do not know to what extent this is going to affect adults using these drugs...but it is still something to think about, carefully.

... I did have some pain relief using Lyrica for my Small Fiber Neuropathy.

Cymbalta, though, has always been the magic bullet for me when I get flairs, with about 75% overall pain relief after being on it 60 mg for several weeks.

What is really interesting, though, is that the pain tends to stay away for some period of time AFTER I discontinue each course of Cymbalta.

For example, I had a big flair in SFN in my palms and even the soles of my feet this past winter. I was then on Cymbalta full strength for five weeks, and completely discontinued it on March 5th.

I was then relatively pain-free until my current fair which began April 18th.

For what it is worth ....

David

Given the huge number of causes of neuropathies and neuropathic pain, this actually doesn't sound all that bad. Do you have figures for single supplements and opioids? I know from reading NT and elsewhere that they don't work for everyone either, but I couldn't cite numbers.

Doc

I really really want to stop taking Gabapentin and just take the supplements but I notice too that when I miss my dosage or experimenting to taper down, my symptoms are worse. I dont think its a coincidence because I tried it several times. So, for me, it is also fair to assume that it does something.

I tapered off Gabapentin at Christmas to change to Lyrica, my GP told me to come down 300mgs per day(my dose was 2400mg per day) by day 3 I was in absolute agony, I called another doc and he said I was reducing too quickly, it should have been one 300mg per week! I am so glad I persevered and switched to Lyrica, the burning has almost disappeared and I have found my feet cold on numerous occasions, this is delicious after years of constant burning

Do you only have burning symptom, and nothing else?

Drugs like Cymbalta work by altering the actions of neurotransmitters at the synapses in the brain. I think it takes a short while to become effective, and will also take a while to
revert to previous actions. We still do not understand all the actions in the brain well, and these drugs really precede total understanding.