Hi Featherbullet
I tried 30 mgs of cymbalta, after the second dose I was very dizzy, spacey and overwhelmed with anxiety. That was the end of cymbalta for me. Sorry I dont have better news, but as you know everyone is different.
I started lyrica 29 days ago, and Im still only on 50 mgs a day. Side effects are making it difficult for me to increase it. How much are you taking of lyrica , do you have any side effects and does it help with your pain? My pain mangmet doc gave me a script for tramadol for "as needed" pain..Have you ever tryed it?

I have not taken Cymbalta. My wife has taken it for years. She is diabetic and takes it for depression. She has never had a problem and it helped the depression a lot. Despite being 56 and a diabetic since age 2, she has never really has discussed PN with her doctor. A couple of years ago, she did tell me about pain and burning after we went for walks. Now she says it is more numb and doesn't bother her. Maybe because she was already on Cymbalta, she bypassed some of the pain and other symptioms.

I am the one who suffers more from recently developed PN but am not diabetic. I may consider taking Cymbalta but am trying some other things first.

Like most medications, you will find some people say it helps immensely and some that claim it did nothing for them or some that state that it made them worse. Some claim it worked on the first does, but I believe that must be a placebo effect. But I don't want to belittle placebos. I would be more than happy if I would get benefit from a placebo, even if temporarily.

Go to one of the sites where users rate drugs like WebMD. I wouldn't consider it a very scientific sample, but at least you get a range of successes and failures and can judge for yourself if it is worth a try. You can usally filter the results by neuropathic pain or nerve pain, but besides PN sufferers, you get lots of other responses from people suffering my Fibromyalgia, MS, sciatica, etc. But many specifically mention PN. You will read uplifting stories like one about a person who suffered with PN for years and just lived it, started a medicatiion and has been remarkedly improved and now do things he/she hasn't done in years. But you have to be prepared that you may not be one of the lucky ones and cymbalta or some other drug with not help you the way it did someone else.

One thing about side effects: Not everyone has severe side effects. Most people even with severe nausea, tiredness, etc., do report that they go away after a while, somethimes months. But it can be hard to stick through the medications if you are having problems. If concerned about side effects, start with a low dosage and slowly increase as side effects diminish. Cymbalta does have a 20 mg pill. The half life is around 12 hours. So I don't think taking it every other day woud benefit much. You would just be delaying thigs. But if going that slowly works for, then do that.

I have small fiber PN (idiopathic) and take 3600mg of Gabapentin and my neurologist added 60mg of Cymbalta. I had profuse sweating and found it very uncomfortable. I switched down to 30mg and though I still have some sweating its tolerable. Whether any of these have made my PN any better is up for debate, but i still take them faithfully.

On a side note: They tried me on Nucynta 50mg (for pain relief) and it put me into LaLa land, so they had me go onto try a 1/4 tablet and i tolerated it better and saw some pain reduction. Then i went up to 1/2 of a 50mg pill and several days into that step up plan I had a seizure and ended up in the ER. So no more NuCynta for pain relief and back to Oxycodone 7.5/325 for pain as needed. Last night I had to take two to make the burning tolerable so i could get to sleep.

What a frustrating process.

Doc