Anyone recently started Duloxetine

Hi Guys
Im just on day 6 of 30mg Duloxetine after coming off Nortriptyline which i unfortunately couldnt tolerate. Has anyone newly started this med or remembers if they had any side effects when starting it. Im either very sedated and spaced out or the complete opposite and have insomnia and prickling and tingling on my skin. I want to give it a fair shot if i can. Im on sick leave for 2 weeks so dont have worry about work just yet
Any advice would be great good or bad.
Cheers jo xx

Hi Jojo

You must hv read my mind. Thought abt you a couple of times this morning already and wondered how you were getting on with new drug. Logged in and up you popped! Hv you searched this forum for Cymbalta? There’s some historic stuff you might find of interest. It’s another anti-depressant, different class from Nori but making you sleepy just the same. Kind of figures to me. Don’t know anything much abt it really but it’s same class as Citalopram I think and my GP offered me that before I had a MAV diagnosis (because she thought my 24/7 dizzies was ‘anxiety’ but she was too polite to actually say so, maybe because it was our first ever meeting). What she did say was it would make me feel alot worse for at least 3 weeks before it would make me feel any better. Drowiness is one of its main side effects. For the record I never took it mainly because it listed ‘dizziness’ as the very first side effect and I’d already been 24/7 dizzy for more than 3 months at the time and was really looking for a ‘cure’. In my ignorance it was pre-MAV diagnosis and I’d never taken any drug long-term and didn’t realise they do nearly all list dizziness as main side effect anyway. Ah, sometimes ignorance is bliss, eh.

I’m no medic but has anybody given you a reason why they haven’t tried you on a betablocker? Maybe you hv blood pressure issues or asthma? Not trying to put you off Cymbalta. Betablockers make people drowsy too sometimes at very low doses. Whole thing of finding the right drug to help really can be a pain. As the Irish say it would give you a pain/pane where you didn’t have a window! Cheers. Helen

Hello my freind😁
Thanks for your reply. How are you doing as the weather was getting to you last time we spoke.
Im not as bad side effect wise with Duloxetine as i was on Nortriptyline but i read some old posts from Colleen way back who had massive success with this drug and it gave me hope. Its seem its an SNRI drug similar to Venaflaxine and that apparently is Hains favourite?? Thing is…people seem to have opened capsules and counted beads and done it VERY slowly whilst i have just chucked the 30mg capsule down the hatch! Now im wondering if i should have done the same and had less side effects. In 2014 i tried Beta Blocker but it didnt really help me then but i certainly would give it a retrial if need be. I can say though that my headaches and neck pain are no more since Botox treatment which im.getting again on 24th August. I still have all the other MAV symptoms though infact i think my dizziness and disconnected feeling with reality has increased of late…
Jo xxx

Im that spaced out i cant even spell " friend" correctly!!! Ha ha

Jo xx

I still appreciated the sentiment behind it though.

It’s cooler here today. Loverly. I feel much better. Some of my heat reaction is the fault of the betablocker I know. Our very bright hot summer sun and I just don’t get on these days and tge PP might well be making me lethargic and a bit slug like too in the heat but I try to always remember the past so, if I’m still vertical and not horizontal, it might not be a good day (what were they like ‘good days of yore’?), but it’s a better day than it used to be. Yes, all the bead counting, sounds tedious but necessary I suppose. I’d have to do it ‘for ever’ cos my digestive system cannot tolerate the ‘plasticy’ coating of any capsules. I can only take pills/tablets. Isn’t life just wonderful? You say the betablocker didn’t help? Which? Taken for how long? I reckon they need much longer to work fully than is often thought. Mine took 9 months at least for full benefit and then you have to be on right dose for you first. I wasted a year on too low a dose for my symptoms. It did control some things but I was at less than 50% til I saw another neuro who upped dose about 40%. Then it took 9 months from there. The dizziness and disassociation afresh, could it be the new drug. Read Dr Silver said it’s good sign if it makes you worse initially it has better chance long-term. Helen

I was on Propanolol 40mg for only a few weeks in 2014 and i can remember feeling faint at work so my GP switched me to Gabapentin instead. I had 6 solid months of headache Nov until May 2015 then woke up one morning dizzy and it never went away…thats how i have no problem accepting my MAV diagnosis…plus i have a history of migraine
Jo xx

Guess yr BP went down. Wish mine would though not that much maybe. A bit would be good though. No prob in acceptance then, me neither. My history’s much same except spread over far longer time period and no actual headaches since menarche. And I follow a common pattern with it being hormonal migraine which can start in childhood, go away for decades completely and return as vertigo instead of headache. Me to a tee as they say. I know so much abt all this now. Shame most doctors/Ent consultants don’t. Personally I think alot of them suffer from Benign Positional Indifference. There seems to be alot of it about.

Me to a tee also…first migraine at 15 then handful in my 20s and 30s all hormone related then none for years…then BAM at 49 years struck down with the worst ever yet migraine then 6 months later MAV…so yeah we are almost simiilar Helen
Jo xx

Gosh. Ain’t we the lucky ones, eh. How did you get diagnosed? GP, had some clue? Anyone ever linked hormones, MAV/menopause to you at all?

Both ENT & Neurologist agreed Vestibular Migraines given my history and symptoms and all tests showed mo ear problems. I was the one who brought up menopause as the possible trigger and my Neurologist said she wouldnt rule it out. I really like her shes young and modern and seems like she wont give up essily hence the Botov…and thank god she did it as its gave me real pain relief.
Jo xx

Another one bites the dust Helen…i woke up with the roof of my mouth all sores, cysitis, headache, burning and tingling in my hands and feet and nausea. Rang GP he wants me to stop the Duloxetine as these are all documenred side effects and i cant cope only lasted 10 days. Im only taking Gabapentin until i see the Neurologist on 24th August for my next Botox injections…i give up!!
Hope your ok
Jo xx

SO VERY SORRY. That’s horrid for you. Really is a blow, isn’t it. Well you tried so hard and were SO brave. Why in the &&&&! is it so very difficult for some people to find a drug that’ll stop this nonsense. So frustrating. I know and appreciate the sensitivity to meds is typical of migraineurs and is just another example of system sensitivity but it’s damned inconvenient and frustrating all the same. And how sensitive some are. I read originally with total amazement of plp reacting to 10mg amitriptyline. My Mum used to take it by the bucketful almost, be put on it, taken abruptly off it and so on, along with other drugs for decades. Might have influenced her mood but never made her too ill and certainly not to the point of stopping it. She didn’t hv migraine. Wd that be the difference. I know the PP has - and will still - give me mouth ulcers. Very easily too. If I just happen to put the pill in my mouth and it doesn’t go down instantly with first swig of water it just touchs my mouth lining and without fail, huge mouth ulcer appears same day. The joys of these meds.

Can you contact the neurologist? Email her admin. Arrange phone consultation and ask her what next? I don’t think that aimovig injection is available in UK yet? Ask her. It’s another month of yr life otherwise. Don’t waste another month of yr life pls. Not trying to scare you but I’m sure I lived half-life for 2 yrs due to VRT/misdiagnosis and then due to too little of the PP because the GP had completely the wrong idea and that’s made getting better so much more difficult for me because you just get less mobile/more entrenched in strange adaptations with yr movements/way of life. You’ll know what I mean. Get on to that neurologist now, today. It’s Silly Season let’s hope she’s not on her hols! Helen

I emailed the headache nurse she had a conversation with my neurologist and she wants me to persevere until my next appointment and we can discuss options…i think she wants me to give the Botox a good chance. I think her way of thinking is if that stops the migraines my dizziness MAY slowly subside in time and she still wants me on VRT.
We"ll see
Jo xx

Well, at least she was there. So, she knows you are exp all these side effects but wants you to continue until 24th August anyway. Don’t know what to say to that one. No idea what the gabapentin is doing/supposed to do for you but I’ve had a read on this forum about ‘botox’ - do hv a look at the historic posts- and it seems some had success with benzos, ie valium and botox. The theory is if the drug controls the headache it should take the other symptoms out because it’s all part and parcel of the same condition. I suppose from exp the dizziness tends to linger longer though. I’ll PM you again shortly. Helen

I meant to say persevere WITHOUT taking the Duloxetine. And the Gaba is for the ear pain i suffer along with MAV which has subsided so i may be able to discontinue this drug Helen.
Jo xx

Thanks for that Helen. Just to say my headaches and neck pain went away 3 weeks after my 1st Botox treatment so i do not have any pain whatsoever now…just all the other MAV symptoms. I will read up on the article you sent me…thanks again
Jo xxx

My Neurologist put me on Memantine,namenda and it has helped 50 percent

Thank you for your reply…are those blood pressure tablets ive never heard of them
Have you been dealing with MAV a long time?
Jo

It’s a med used for alzheimers apparently. i had to look it up. Interesting I’ve come across it twice today never having heard if it before. Saw somebody else taking it daily for migraine. Think they were from a migraine family where it appeared to be strongly genetic. It’s sometimes used as a migraine preventative particularly in cases of chronic daily headache/migraine and tension headaches. Actually just checked the 100 drugs to try on the welcome section of this forum (never read it before). And its listed there. Large as life. Helen