Re: Thank you, Notan

[Guest guest]

Hi Deborah-

I don't suffer from achalasia but my son does. However I can speak on the

Cymbalta issue. I dealt with some pain issues for a looong time, and was on a

lot of pain meds. My doc suggested an anti depressant. At first I was opposed to

the idea of using a med for something other than what it's intended for, but I

also suffer from depression. I have to say the pain I was having virtually

disappeared. I know there have been many studies on the efficacy of tricyclics

and SSRI's on pain. Again I can't speak for the pain with ahalasia, but maybe if

it works for one pain it works for others. On a side note, I took neurontin

after foot surgery. It was awful! I felt like my head was attached to my body

with a string like a balloon. Wicked stuff. I'm sure Notan and others have an

opinion in regards to these meds on achalasia but I thought I would share my

experience! Hope you get to feeling better :-)

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 26, 2011, at 3:55 PM, Deborah Lattimore <deborah_Lattimore@...>

wrote:

> Hi, Notan and Fellow Achalasians,

>

> Thank you for responding to my recent problem. And now I'm

getting

> little bouts of chest pains, too. I think it's spasms. The odd thing in the

mix

> is that about two 1/2 months ago, I decided to stop taking Cymbalta. I've

been

> on it for some time and I wanted to just jettison the stuff. I went off it

gradually,

> had some dipping down emtionally, which I expected, and now I'm off it

> completely. The only problem is that the Cymbalta was actually good for a

> lot of the nerve pain I've got in my legs. (I've had pain in both legs all my

life,

> mostly from sporting accidents, had a horse roll on me back and forth for

> 20 minutes, hit in the legs during field hockey and other sports, and I was

> a runner, too.) I'm hoping I'll be able to get to a plateau with this, by

sweating

> it out.

>

> Does Cymbalta calm down Achalasia problems at all? I've been

> trying to figure out as if there is any connection. Interesting. Oh, my

> neurologist put me on Neurontin for three years and I did begin to notice

> that a lot of the pains were calming down. Unfortunately, it also gave me

> narcolepsy, so I'm off that, too.

>

> Just mainly interested in the connections between Achalasia

> and neurological pains. You've put up some great articles so I'll go check

> them out again.

>

> All best, Deborah

>

>

[Guest guest]

Deborah wrote:

>

> ... Does Cymbalta calm down Achalasia problems at all? ... my

> neurologist put me on Neurontin ...

>

A number of people in this support group have used selective serotonin

reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for NCCPs and spasms. Cymbalta is a

selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI). It has

the action of an SSRI and another action to stop pain. Both types of

drugs are used for a variety of chronic pains and should work sometimes

for achalasia. Neurontin is another type of drug. It is used as an

anticonvulsant. It isn't entirely clear how it works but it seems to

slow the firing of neurons calming them down so pain signals are not

transfered.

notan