Thanks everyone for your feedback. I have a call in to my psyciatrist & am waiting for him to call me back but it really doesnt matter. Yesterday I went & saw my primary care doc. He does almost all my meds including my pain meds because my Pm doc doesnt listen to me very well. The first thing I talked to him about was the Savella. My doc was not happy. He said under no circumstances should I be taking this medication. we have tried medications in the same catagory as this (I thought so) & & the effects were nit favorable & that was before I was taking a medication that the pamphlet says can conflict with this medication. I also got some wierd news & wonder if anyone has seen this or if this is happening to them. I have shrunk 3/4 of an inch in a year. I am going in for lab work today & after that we will see what tests need to be run. But thats a lot of height to lose in a shirt amount of time. I dont know what to think. Thanks fo all the help.
Hugs, Denny

Denny and all...I'm new here and looking forward to discussing fibro, med's, etc. My pain mgmt dr. put me on Savella over two weeks ago. First few days, I had some minor side effects (flushing, nausea), but nothing too serious. Until four days ago. After lunch I started to experience a sudden, rapid heart rate increase (I felt like I was being choked). My hubby said I turned beet red and my carotid artery was bulging out of my neck! It finally subsided 2-3 minutes later, but it seemed like an eternity. As luck would have it, I had an unrelated dr.'s appt. a few hours later. While I was in the waiting room, it started again! The nurse rushed me to the back, took my blood pressure and it was 190/150!!!My normal is 105/70. I honestly thought I was having a heart attack or stroke. I'm on no other med's, so my reg. physician took me off the Savella. It took me three days to detox and it was extremely unpleasant! (and remember, I was only on it for 15 days!) Anyone wishing to try this med, please be very careful and if you've had a bad reaction to other SRNI's before, you probably want to avoid this altogether. This stuff scared the crap out of me!

Peanutwiggins, First & foremost I am so sorry that ghappened to you. I can only imagine how freigtened you were. Thank God you had a doctors appointment already scheduled. At least you were at the doctor when happpned so they could witness what was happening to you. Thank you for sharing the information too. I have bad reactions to anti-depressant medications. My POm didnt listen to me. I am so glad two other of my doctors over ruled him & said no I could not take this medication. If it hadnt worked I would not have wanted to go through the withdrawal syp[toms you did. I hope you find other medication that helps you.
Hugs, Denny

Sorry.... the conference I attended had very little on Fibro and Savella.

The speaker was Russian, with a thick accent, and no one could understand him. His specialty was dopamine receptors in the brain and opiate response. So I am sorry, no new information on the clinical advantages to Savella.

He also had oxytocin information and estrogen links to pain. But I will have to study the handouts of the original studies for a while on this one. His accent was so thick, he was impossible to understand. And he talked to fast and ran words into each other!

I've just checked, I'm in Europe and Savella or "milnacipran" isn't in the medications list of the official Belgian (just one itty bit of Europe) pharmacy site. We're lagging a bit behind, I guess. Maybe it is already available in other European countries, I don't know.

Savella was used for years before it passed FDA here.

This link gives some of the countries where it was first used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milnacipran

I believe it was in Japan also before US. Many papers on PubMed are from Japan and China.

Hello everyone. I was prescribed Savella in June 2010. My pm dr said that it was a brand new med for fibro and she thought it would be a good addition to my regime. When I first began taking this med I had to start at low doses and work my way up to 100mg per day. Right away it worked wonders! I was even able to wear high heals for the first time in 4 yrs. Savella increases a persons blood pressure so I was told to cut back the dose as soon as I experienced severe nausea because that us a sign that my blood pressure was to high. The first two weeks I experienced flushing and sweating episodes but they stopped for the most part after I had been on a steady dose of 100mg per day. At that time I felt awesome and I loved that the med gave me energy. However, my blood pressure stayed at high levels so I stopped taking it. My dr told me to cut the dose down and now I take the 25mg pill twice per day. Although most the time I take only 1 per day and it still works great at a low dose. It also helps my pain meds to work longer. The reason this med increases a persons blood pressure is because it has epnerepherine in it. I hope this helps, but becareful when starting this medicine as you need to monitor your Bp and start at really low doses (10mg per day is what I started with).
Sarah

not sure if this is at all related, but my mom shrunk 1" when she collapsed a vertebra having me...she had a lot of back pain from it, not that any of us would neccessarily know the difference (i probably wouldn't, anyhow).

Hi, I used to be 5'3'' and now I'm 4'10''. I was so shocked. I might be a dwarf now: Mine is happening because I'm losing bone and crikey, I have trouble remembering nouns. the pads in my backbone.(?) Spending lots of $$ at the tailor.later, val