Posted by Cairo on April 28, 2006, at 7:32:20
I'm currently on Lyrica 150mg HS and 100mg AM for chronic pain, Desyrel 50mg for sleep, atenolol 12.5mg for mildly elevated blood pressure, and Unithroid for a mild hypothyroid condition (which I believe is due to a hypofunctioning HPA axis). It is helping a little with pain, is good for sleep, and has some anti-anxiety effect.
I am slowly ramping up the Lyrica dose due to side effects (unsteadiness and blurred vision) and hope to achieve more pain control at higher doses. The problem is that with each dose escalation of Lyrica, I'm gaining more weight and my blood pressure is becoming a little low in spite of cutting back on the atenolol dose. This may account for the unsteadiness and other symptoms of low blood pressure. Some of the weight gain seems to be water retention as there is mild pitting edema. No matter how I restrict the calories, the weight stays put.
I had previously tried Cymbalta and found that I could only tolerate 5mg due to severe side effects including akathisia, but pain was never helped so I discontinued it. I did have more energy, less hypothyroid-like symptoms on it (less postural dizziness, for example, improvement in mood and some weight loss (though that might have been at higher doses on it since I was started at 60mg and had to titrate downwards).
I'm wondering if adding back the 5mg of Cymbalta will help with the Lyrica side effects of weight gain, unsteadiness, etc. The only thing I worry about is inducing panic attacks again, which I had after a trial of Topamax (too many side effects to mention). I successfully tried Klonopin for the panic attacks, but was able to wean off after starting the Lyrica.
As I am very sensitive to caffeine, chocolate and the like, I'm afraid that Cymbalta may induce panic attacks. What do you think?
Cairo
poster:Cairo
thread:637753
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060423/msgs/637753.html