Possible health problems as a result of long term usage of cymbalta

Hi just wondering if anyone has any thoughts or knows more about this than I do
Basically I was on cymbalta for years,worked up to 60mg&use alongside Aripiprozol 10mg.this was a good fit for me,the 2 in tandem worked well&I had no side effects.i was prescribed for mental health reasons,but I have had physical issues, chronic pain related, since I was 12(I'm now 41) for this,I have been on zapains (codeine) plus liquid morphine plus a fentanyl patch which I wear 24/7&change every 3 days.none of this medication has caused any noticeable problems for me
about 5 years ago,I suddenly developed chronic night sweats,like strip the bed 6 times a night chronic,but there was no other accompanying symptoms.the doctor said it was anxiety,it wasn't,but they dismissed my opinion.i stopped taking both the cymbalta &the Aripiprozol in January 2021,doing this caused no noticeable issues.
At the start of November 2022,I became very suddenly very sick.the night sweats suddenly appeared in the daytime, coupled with a fatigue so extreme that it was borderline narcolepsy, I was literally falling asleep with food in my mouth.ive had chronic fatigue for over ten years,this is not that,this is way way worse.
In March 2023,I started vomiting after food,&normally, I'm not a puker, even with a bad hangover I can't make myself sick at all,me vomiting is a sure sign I'm VERY sick.when I was vomiting,I would also be poohing at the same time,both ends at once.this would happen often as fast as 3 bites of a bacon sandwich, then I'd feel a warm feeling spread from the bellybutton outwards,followed by a pain that felt like my guts were being ripped to shreds,not a cramp,cramps squeeze this is the opposite,like how i imagine an over inflated balloon feels before it pops.its severe enough to make me pass out.this is followed by Mr blowing out from both ends,simultaneously.its ALWAYS food related, if I don't eat,it doesn't happen.it doesn't happen every day,it sometimes doesn't even happen every week,but I bleed,both ends.bright red,clots,pink/red vomit,coffee grinds,black vomit with red clots.
I've been under investigation since April,an endoscopy showed a small hiatus hernia bulging in my oesophagus &an inflamed duodenum,nothing else,my bowel cts are normal.my FIT test on a stool sample was terrible,my ferritin levels and inflammation levels are high in my blood,my electrolyte levels are bad
My consultant is saying its most likely the cymbalta,but I had stopped taking that in January 2021,the bleeding wasn't present until March 2023.i never had any problems whilst taking cymba,is it genuinely possible that it could be that which has caused the bleeding &the pain?it doesn't make sense to me that it could be as I only have the issue when I ate meat initially,then even soup caused the same reaction, but not at every meal,not every day,or every week,sometimes I go a couple of weeks without a"blowout",surely if it was the cymbalta then I'd have that problem all the time,and surely it would have started to present far earlier than 2 years after I stopped taking it?
I'm concerned I'm going to get fobbed off with this as an answer simply because they can't see anything obvious in the results of my test.its taken me a year to get as far as I have because of the nhs continuing to strike repeatedly, plus the incompetence of some of the clinicians, and also the wait time for test results.im concerned they're going to opt for an easy answer &drop my case&I'll just have to carry on like this permanently
If anyone read this far,thank you,seriously, thank you so much.i am open to any&all thoughts,comments, opinions, suggestions, anything, literally anything.im so exhausted, I don't think I can deal with the prospect of having to continue like this forever,the pain is disgusting, it's inhuman,I gave birth without pain relief &I'd rather do that 5 times a day than have this problem.

Hi thank you so much for your reply!I'll apologise in advance if thus message is poorly written I'm struggling to stay awake alpt at the moment, so my heads quite fuzzy
I had an endoscopy about a week after I first reported the old in my vomit,it was pound coin sized bright red clots,the vomit itself was pink tinged.i hadn't realised pink tinted vomit meant an active bleed, but I realised mine had always been pink tinged since the vomiting this had first started.the blood in my stool came later,about a month later.
So I had the endoscopy a week after reporting it,they said a small hiatus hernia bulging into esophagus &an informed duodenum, but they found nothing to explain the symptoms I'd had.thwy were convinced that had been going to fund a stomach fimull of ulcers or tumours,but found none,so they sent me off for an abdominal ct,which I had 2 days later.they found nothing except for ovarian cysts,on the left(right ovary is clear) nobody told me how many cysts,or the size,I've only recently found that out,(one,2.5cm).the team who performed the abdominal ct said the cyst would need investigating further,so I had an ultrasound early November,they did the external one (like a pregnancy one) but said they couldn't see anything at all,they showed me&they were right it looked like all my insides had been scraped out,so they then did an internal one.they were meant to write with the findings but didn't, so after 3months of chasing I now know the ultrasound clinic said it needs redoing because the visibility was so bad, they need to re-do ot,but nobody has rebooked it&everyone is blaming everyone else.a month after my endoscopy, I went for a colonoscopy.they tried both camera tube sizes but after 20minutes they were forced to stop after it became medically extremely unsafe to continue.it turns out my bowel is abnormally excessively narrow, where it should curve/bend,mines in tight loops.i went into a very deep&severe shock because of the pain,so much so that I had an out of body experience,which absolutely thoroughly traumatised me.they refused to continue the proceedings because they said I'd be at too high a risk of perforation.i was devastated, I'd have gotten the result the same day had it gone ahead.a they saw in it was .old diverticulitis, which is completely normal for a woman my age.so I was then referred for a bowel ct.fpr some reason the wait was quite long,so I waited from June until November for the appointment, the results should have gone to my gastric consultant within 10days,but I was still chasing them 3 months later.i finally got them and found the test failed,but nobody would tell me why.i got another one rebooked &they told me about the first one,they said the right side of my bowel wasn't visible, it collapsed.my 2nd bowel went much better, they gave me the pain relief injection that also relaxes the bowel wall to aid inflation, I wasn't given it last time, because they thought I had intermittent claudication, which I've never had,ever.my results for this ct came back as normal.ive seen my consultant and he's written to my gp about me being given these tablets that counteract the effects of opioid medication by stopping them make me constipated.i don't suffer with constipation, I never have result,only twice, once after giving birth 20years ago&once after my first bowel ct last November year,he knows this.he basically said he's got no idea what it is other than blaming constipation that I don't &haven't had,or blaming the fact that I took duloxetine/cymbalta that was always a good got for me,the cymbalta plus Aripiprozol.ive Bern on alot of medication since I was 20,I'm 41 now.i ha e a wide range of physical issues so I've tried everything in the book for pain management over the years,trammadol pregabalin you name it,I ate it.i was prescribed the anti inflammation drug naproxen, but they wouldn't give me a protective stomach medication to go with it,like omeraprazle, so I never took it because it ripped your stomach to pieces with the omeraprazle.im loathe to agree to cymbalta being the cause of the bleeding.i was taking it vert happily with no side effects for several years,&when I stopped taking it&the Aripiprozol in January 2020,I had no problems either.then the sweating &fatigue literally came out of nowhere November 2022,then the bleeding whilst vomiting end of march 2023,the the blood in poo a couple of weeks later.the pain started with the vomiting,it's central, around my belly button area,it feels like if you peed the bed,like a warmth spreading outward,then BOOM its excruciating.the only other pain I get is on the left side of my torso,waist area,it's like a knitting needle jabbed right in there.when I vomit it's always around food,&I will be vomiting violently into a bucket whilst sat on thr loo crapping myself inside out.its incredibly aggressive,to the point where they I can't keep up with the flow of vomit so it ends up coming out of my mouth&nose but also going down my throat.i take a breathe,vomit,take a breath,poo,take a breath,vomit,take a breath,poo,buy it comes so hard,fast&in such quantities that it goes down the back of my throat &I choke on it,I can't breathe.but this doesn't happen every time I eat,it doesn't happen everyday it doesn't even happen every week.my food became extremely restricted at o e point,I've worked hard to identify trigger foods,but now there aren't any,by which I mean a pizza is as safe as a glass if water there's no rules &no pattern.all the sorts of foods you'd expect to be problems just aren't, alcohol, bread,cheese, greasy food,spicy food,no problems there.i could drink 3 bottles of wine&be fine.but then one day 3 teaspoons of soup &I'm in so much pain I want to end myself.i have to take a bucket everywhere I go,plus several changes of clothes because my sqeat varies between smelling like stagnant pee or it smells extremely acidic, like vomit.ive been given medication for hyperhidrosis, but they said it'd developed as a result of an underlying condition &until that's fixed,the hyperhidrosis will remain.
When I mentioned alcohol, I meant more in the sense that I have drank and had no problem rather than being a frequent drinker,I pretty much gave up completely several years ago, I don't like the feeling of being drunk anymore.ill have a couple of glasses of wine every now&then,but I'm not chugged bottles every day my memory is bad enough, no thanks to hangovers lol!I've never been a poker,if I'm actually being sick,it means there's definitely something wrong.i have kept a log of food for a long time, in fact i

Good evening, Lazy Gaga. You are I believe 7 hours ahead of me in Florida. I have spent several hours looking over all you are going through and this is what I think is going on. I believe your diverticulitis has come back with a vengeance and you need bowel rest and possibly antibiotics. This can be the cause of your pain on the left side too. Below you will see a link to the Mayo Clinic which shows the symptoms of nausea, fatigue, diarrhea and I checked and sweating can be another symptom…and of course pain. You could be in a liquid diet. I think things like Ensure which have a ton of nutrients in it could help. You probably aren’t absorbing things well. I did see that scrambled eggs usually are fine to eat with diverticulitis and are good because they are high in protein. Remember, no nuts, raw veggies, anything that could get lodged intestinal pockets.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diverticulitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20371758

I take the prescription strength of Pepcid AC to help with excess stomach acid. My doctor prescribes Famotidine, which is the generic Pepcid AC, and it is 40 mg. This slows down the acid but doesn’t completely stop it. It’s very good and I do keep Tums close by if I need them.


I had never heard of intermittent claudication so I googled it and it is muscle pain in the calf or buttocks generally caused by exercise. It didn’t fit what you were told. Perhaps you didn’t understand what they said because you said you never ever had that before.

Folate induced anemia I think you can take care of. I told you I do have anemia because of my Crohn’s disease so I take slow released iron. It’s gentle on your stomach and contains 45 mg of ferrous sulfate which is 250% of the daily requirement. AND, you can buy folate! I get mine at Walmart but Walmart did buy ASDA stores in the UK. I checked the ASDA stores online and couldn’t tell if they sell what I take but you can buy it online. I take Spring Valley Folate 1,333 mcg DFE. This amounts to 333% of your daily requirement! I’ve used this for years. So, I do not have this Folate anemia. Most places are selling folate for around $15…even Amazon…but you will see the Spring Valley one I take from Walmart and it says $4.88. This is for a bottle containing 400 tablets which is over a year supply since you only take one tablet a day.

I learned a long time ago that Welches grape juice helps with digestive issues. If you have a partial bowel obstruction with the pain, drinking some grape juice can help. I buy the WELCH’S frozen concentrate. You can find a can of it in the freezer case where you find cans of frozen lemonade. It’s pure grape juice with nothing added. You might give this a try. One or two 8 ounce glasses is plenty. Start out slowly to see how it works for you.

Again, I am not a doctor but I know what has worked for me. I wrote down your complaints and looked them up to get the information I used. I did notice that you have done most of the testing I suggested but I didn’t see that you had an upper and lower GI. Those show a lot too. I don’t know how the healthcare is in the UK is but, if you can, get a second opinion from a different gastroenterologist…hopefully a board certified one. The gastroenterologist and their team that you are using are constantly not coming through for you. You deserve far better care than what you are getting in my humble opinion.

Lastly, PLEASE use paragraphs and punctuation. I do see some punctuation but writing one extremely long post with no paragraphs is very hard to read. It takes me awhile to work through it and if I lose my place I have to go on a hunting expedition to find where I left off. You probably aren’t getting responses because people aren’t going to try to read it. So please use paragraphs next time.

I hope some of this has helped you.

Sherrine