I took Cymbalta a few years ago and it did seem to stop most of my pain. I stopped taking it when my cousin called to say it had caused her to have Chronic Hear Failure. I already have Chronic Heart Failure so it did not seem like a good drug for me to take. At the time, my doctor and pharmacist agreed I should not take Cymbalta. I now have a new doctor and he has suggested I take Cymbalta. I told him no at first, but then again spoke with my pharmacist who thought it would now be okay to take this medication. There do not seem to be as many warnings for heart disease associated with this drug as there were when it first came out. However there are horrible withdrawal symptoms associated with this drug. The doctors were unable to find a reason for my heart failure, but at the time my heart was functioning at 10%. It is now much stronger. My current doctor is new and unfamiliar with my past medical history. 

At the time I was taking Cymbalta I was also taking Percocet for pain. I no longer take anything for pain except for Tylenol and Bufferin. Do you have any thoughts on Cymbalta that you might share with me as to whether it would be safe for me to take this medication? I am terrified on taking any medication that might hurt my heart.  

I'm a now 29-year-old white male who has struggled with fibromyalgia symptoms for over 2 years.  In the course of this time, I have tried various drugs from various different groups ranging from anticonvulsants, anxiolytics, opioids, and just about every antidepressant on the market, the last being the group of medications that not only helped the least, but also caused the most side effects.  Doctors are starting to get a better understanding of the concept of what pain really is, mainly because chronic pain is becoming not just a bigger issue, but also a much more vocal one.  It may be true that heightened emotional states can bring on physical symptoms, and vice-versa, that emotions and pain sensations tend to travel along the same neural pathways in the human body, and for the reasons above doctors believe a lot of the pain that people "experience" is psychosomatic, the result of emotions; however, from my own experience with antidepressants in combination with what I've learned as a medical student, I believe that emotions play a smaller role in determining how people experience pain in that it's not that emotions caused the pain to begin with, but the other way around, that the extreme symptoms that a FM patient can experience are caused by a currently indertiminate pathology, a phantom disease that can't be seen, or better stated recognized, by the imaging studies and batteries of blood work that are currently used today, then add to that the stress FM patients undergo from financial, marital, psychological, and overall situational stressors, this in turn makes the symptoms worse. 

Sorry I'm so long winded, I'll get to my point:

I feel that antidepressants have a place in the treatment of chronic pain, but I am not convinced, both by personal experience and by study, that it's place should be foremost in the treatment of chronic pain, fibromyalgia to be included.  There are many sites which say that SNRIs like Cymbalta, or the next in line out Savella, provide many people with pain relief.  There probably are some people in which antidepressants are a perfect course of treatment for their chronic pain issues.  I also believe, however, that the number of people who claim to receive a substantial and/or beneficial relief from pain through the use of SNRIs is not as high in actuality as many studies that are posted online claim it to be.  Besides, have you ever noticed how most of the studies you read conerning the efficacy of SNRIs in treating chronic pain are done by the same people who manufacture these drugs, such Eli Lilly for example?  Call me paranoid, but it seems a lot like the proud, and rather biased, parent singing praises about a child that they love, but those around them can't stand.  Secondly, if this specific class of medications really did help this much, don't you think you would be hearing and reading less about chronic pain, and that other hot topics in the medical community would be taking their place? 

Truth is, despite my condemning antidepressants at the main course of treatment for chronic pain, I haven't the foggiest clue what would be a better alternative, and won't until I've cured myself I guess, but I believe that the FDA and other entities which doctors draw their knowledge off of, and depend on, need to do a better job at one, keeping high-dollar corporations from pressuring them to put drugs on the market for uses which aren't necessarily very useful, and more importantly, focus on other, and more promising, avenues of investigation in regards to making chronic pain no longer chronic, and in turn, no longer so completely encompassing and devastating to a person's overall life.