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. …read more

I almost want to put this one in my Duh File, where I put studies that cause a reaction from me like “Geez, no kidding!” But, I guess it has its merit. It’s just that the connection is so glaringly obvious to me and likely to the millions of people who live with chronic pain.
When you have chronic pain, how it’s managed, how it affects your life, and how you see it affects how you feel mentally and emotionally. If you see your pain as unchanging, as unbeatable, you may tend to give in to it, believing that you have …read more

By Guest Blogger Patti G.
I don’t look like there’s anything wrong with me. If you saw me you wouldn’t know that I’m in pain. Everyday activities are challenging and I never know how my body will feel from one day to the next. Simple things, like laundry and dishes, become impossible some days, barely tolerable others.
I live with Fibromyalgia.
I hurt my back in a fall eleven years ago. For many years I dealt with trying to learn how to live with the chronic pain from it. I tried everything; medication, injections, physical therapy. Nothing helped; my doctors finally told me …read more

Living with chronic pain, non-cancer pain, often causes other problems besides the pain itself. These problems can range from physical issues, such as overusing one side of the body to protect the other, to psychological issues, such as depression, to social issues, such as isolation.
Chronic pain is also extremely difficult to treat in most cases. Acute pain is caused – usually – by an identifiable source and is fixable. This includes a broken bone, an incision from surgery, a toothache. But chronic pain is not as easily identified, not as specific, and often not fixable.
A new study, published in the …read more

Specialists in diabetes, neurology, pain management and rehabilitation have begun a ground breaking study of peripheral nerve surgery to help patients with long-standing pain and numbness in patients with diabetic neuropathy.
About one-third of patients with diabetic neuropathy have overlying compression of certain nerves in the leg that may worsen the pain and cause loss of sensation at the bottom of the foot. Several studies have demonstrated that the nerves may increase in diameter in diabetic patients. In this study, UT Southwestern investigators are hoping to show that by releasing pressure from the specific nerves of these patients, pain may be …read more