Cymbalta | Arthritis Information

Is anyone taking Cymbalta for their PMR? Dr. just prescribed it and I have been on Prednisone for 2 months already. I take 5mg Pred, and will take 30 mg Cymbalta. Just wondering if anyone else was using this particular medication.

I don't take Cymbalta, which is an antidepressant. Cymbalta is supposed to help fibromyalgia pain, but that is different from PMR pain. The main treatment for fibromyalgia is with antidepressants. You certainly are in the age group of fibromyalgia patients but certainly not PMR. I don't possibly see how you can determine which drug you are using is actually helping you with taking all those meds that you are taking. It seems to me your MD is just prescribing anything to help all kinds of pain and not just targeting the specific pain.

the dr prescribed Cymbalta for me with PMR and it did help me. I was able to get off the pred by doing a no sugar anti inflamatory diet. I think some dr are at a loss as how to treat PMR. I hated the way I felt on pred. Make sure you are seeing an arthritis dr for your PMR. At age 29, you've been definitvely diagnosed with PMR? Boy, I'd get a second opinion about that. On the standard bell curve, you are so far to the left at that age that the probablility is in the LOW single digits. I'm not saying you don't have it, but the odds are huge that you've been misdiagnosed. It is very rare in people under 50 years of age, much less under 30. The truth of the matter is you have a steroid responsive disorder, and there are more of those than there are diagnoses...but most Docs have too much ego to admit that.

As for Cymbalta and PMR, hmmm. I've not heard of this before, and I've been treated now for almost 2 years - most docs will try mixing prednisone with methotrexate, but that didn't work for me. Unfortunately, straight prednisone (now down to 4mg/day) is the only solution, but I tolerate it very well. Can't say the same for my bone density, however!

I recently tried Cymbalta to alleviate severe neuropathic pain due to low back disc disease and disc herniations, but find that a Lyrica/Neurontin cocktail is what works best for me - in the past 7 months, I have tried just about everything in order to cut down/eliminate narcotics use. Cymbalta works for some people, but I'm not one of them. Within 30 days of taking a 30mg/day dose, I was almost clinically depressed (and I'm a happy guy) and had to stop taking it precipitously. However, that was not as big a problem as was the [short term] withdrawal that immediately followed: extremely violent nightmares (requiring lorazepam at night for 3 days), followed by what I can only describe as electric "brain zaps" for another 10 days. It was a couple of weeks I'd just as soon forget, to say the least.

The bottom line is I did not have a positive experience with Cymbalta, but as with all drugs, YMMV. I urge you to get a second opinion from another Rhumy, and be sure to do some research about Cymbalta, especially if you decide to go off it.