Barking up the wrong tree?

I've now been taking 150 mg of imipramine daily for over a month. It seemed to be working really really well for the first few weeks, as in no pain bad enough to need pain meds, but in the last week I've gotten back to hurting the same way I did without it. I started a new vitamin supplement about the same time that the pain started up again. Are there any supplements that could or do cause more fibro pain? This is a phytonutrient supplement that has grape extract plus carrot, plum, blueberry, tomato, and raspberry powders.

If not, then I've apparently failed yet another drug, but I'm still encouraged a but because it did seem to work for a while. I'm starting to wonder if we're barking up the wrong tree as far as pain reduction. I knew before having my hysterectomy that low hormone levels can cause body pain but decided I wouldn't do any HRT unless I absolutely had to. I took Prempro for 3 months afterward but nothing since then. By now I really shouldn't have any hormones left in my body, but I'm showing some (doctor confirmed) signs that there's still some floating around. My OB/GYN didn't take any baseline bloodwork pre-hyst to be able to compare my current levels, so I have no idea if it'd be worth an appointment with him to at least give some HRT a try and see what happens. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I took Prempro for about a year and then was taken off it for safety reasons.  I haven't had any hormones since and it hasn't affected my pain any worse so I don't think that will really make a difference.

 

Have you googled the side effects of the supplement you added?  If it doesn't show up, then google the ingredients, one by one, in it and you might be able to tell that way.

 

You also might have something else along with fibro going on, too.  This happened to me this past winter.  Once I got a good diagnosis and put on the right medication, my pain has lessened immensely.  I only take over the counter pain relievers.

 

Let us know what you find out.  I'm really curious now.  I'm sorry you are going through this but you will figure it out. 

 

Sherrine

Thanks for the input, all! Sherrine-I did google the ingredients and nothing came up. I was just kind of wondering if anyone had had any issues themselves. I had a bunch of bloods retested last month when I told my doctor that things didn't seem to be healing right. All that was out of whack was a sed rate of 24, which is considered "high" on a scale of 0-20 and was a change for me (my sed rates had never been over 10 any of the times he'd checked it) but my doc wasn't at all concerned. X-rays taken when I'd complained of massive joint pain this spring all turned out fine, also. He's pretty sure I have some inflammatory arthritis or widespread tendon inflammation going on, but until lab values change he can't diagnose anything. Snowbunny-I take tizanidine at bedtime, which is a muscle relaxer, and gabapentin 600 mg 3x/day. I all ready tried and failed Savella and Cymbalta. The reason he put me on the imipramine was because he said it doesn't work as an antidepressant but he'd been getting good results with it for fibro, plus it's cheap. getting by-My doc has said that 150 mg/day of imipramine is the highest dose a person should take because above that the side effects are generally too severe to continue it. He had warned me that imipramine is one of those drugs that only works for a short time, but he was talking in terms of a few months, not a few weeks.

So, okay. I won't really worry about the hormone thing, then. I guess I can take some small comfort with the fact that the imipramine did work at least for a while (unless it was coincidence), so maybe we can give another tricyclic a try. I'll be really glad to get off of the imipramine because it drains what little energy I have anymore. I have state medical insurance now, which will pay 100% of pretty much anything my doctor feels is medically necessary, so he said he was going to set me up with some physical therapy. I'm going to follow up on that. I have to get in to see him again before school starts so I can hopefully be well into another med before I have to start concentrating again.

I have one other question that I'll ask here instead of starting a new thread. This weekend the achille's tendon in one foot randomly tightened up so badly after sitting for just a half hour that I couldn't walk. I stretched it out and then had to walk flat-footed for a while before it loosened up, and then it ached for the rest of the day like I'd "pulled" it. Anyone ever had that happen? I never have and it's a little unnerving. I have a lot of pain in my achille's tendons (it can sometimes be the worst, "brightest" pain I feel) and they've been tight before but that's more or less always been in the morning and nothing even remotely that bad.

As long as it has happened to others and isn't a bad thing, then I won't worry about it. So much weird stuff happens to us and it's just comforting to know that I'm not the only one and it's nothing to worry about.