Cymbalta Helping with Low Chronic Back Pain

Cymbalta (duloxetine) is an antidepressant medication that has also been found to help manage some types of chronic pain, such as the nerve pain from diabetic neuropathy. This isn’t to infer that the chronic pain is in your mind, not at all. What has happened is that the actions of Cymbalta not only are on what causes depression, but may work on what causes chronic pain.

People who live with chronic lower back pain understand all too well what it’s like not to be believed half the time and not to be able to control the pain much of the time. However, researchers are dedicating a lot of time and resources into finding ways to manage chronic pain of many types, including lower back pain.

A study presented at the European Federation of International Association for the Study of Pain Chapters (EFIC), researchers showed that of 181 patients who were living with chronic lower back pain, the majority who took Cymbalta reported less pain and this reduced pain lasted for the 41 weeks of the study.

The trial was an open label trial, which meant that everyone knew what they were taking, unlike a blinded study, which took place for 13 weeks before the open label, when patients were given a placebo or the study medication.

After the 13-week blinded study, the patients were divided into groups where one group received 60 mg of the medication and the other 120 mg. This was to see how long the effects of pain relief would last.

The patients who had received the Cymbalta during the initial 13-week trial were given the same dose that they were taking then and those patients who were on the placebo during the 13-week trial were switched to Cymbalta.

Fifty-eight of the 13-week study patients responded well to the Cymbalta, so researchers followed them to see if their response to the medication would continue over the 41 weeks. What the researchers found was that not only did the patients who responded in the 13 weeks continue to respond later, many of them saw their pain decrease even more.

This finding is promising and may mean that many people can be helped find pain relief. Of course, like all medications, Cymbalta is not recommended for everyone and only your doctor will be able to tell you may be a candidate for it.

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