Anxiety & Cymbalta. New to forum.

Hi, I'm new here. A little history first. I'm a 62 year old male and was very successful and doing well till 2004. I had a mild heart attack and had a stent put in. I went back to work in a few days and had some anxiety but worked through it. Everything was fine till June of 2009 when I ended up in the ER again with chest pains. This time they put in two stents. they were what they called kissing stents and it was a very difficult and long procedure ( 3.5 hrs). They had problems and almost lost me and was bringing on a heart attack and I was awake through all this. This time it took me a couple of weeks to regain my strength to go back to work but had alot of anxiety. They told me there was a 30% chance the stents could fail within 12 weeks. I felt like a walking dead man but went to work everyday. In 13 weeks I was back in ER with chest pains and the stents had closed up so the next day they did open heart, triple bypass. It was a rough recovery. 10 days after coming home I was grocery shopping with my wife because i couldn't take being left alone. When they said I caould start driving again I had to leave the house in very short trips, venturing out farther each day. 12 weeks after surgery I again went back to work but the anxiety was very bad. I lasted 10 months at work and had to give it up, partly because of the fatigue from the heart meds and partly because of the anxiety, which I kept to myself, only my wife knew. I thought after being off work for awhile it would take care of itself. It got better to a point but that was it. I changed how I did things in my life and there are some things I won't do anymore. We haven't been away even for a weekend trip since the surgery. I am now battling with Social security for disability.I need to say that in 2006 my GP put me on Wellbutrin 300mg because I was feeling depressed. I finally brought the anxiety to my cardiologists attention back in December. he said I need to see a psychologist. I went to my GP for a referal and he said lets try cymbalta first, so on Feb 1st I started 30mg and was on it for about 10 weeks. Lots of side effects the first 3 weeks but felt great otherwise then it seemed to stop working so now I am on day 14 with 60mg Cymbalta and the side effects are worse. Trying to stick it out to see if I can get my life back. Never had issues like this till the heart disease came along! Sorry for the long post, just thought the history was necessary. Don't know what I'll do if this doesn't work. I don't want to live like this and it isn't fair to my wife.

Thanks for the reply. After reading through some of the posts I guess i'm relatively new to this condition having it come on late in life and only a little over two years now. This is so alien to me. I guess I have also been hard on myself for not being able to deal with it. I have had many traumatic experiences in my life and have always been able to get through them. Thanks for the advice about therapy, I may end up there yet. Having a hard time right now just accepting having to take another med.

Thanks medved. If the cymbalta fails I will be going to a psychologist. I want the Cymmbalta to work because it got rid of alot of joint pain also. I have had 4 really bad days in a row with the med, tremors, when I sit down my leg wants to bounce up and down. I get very dizzy when I stand. I have had a problem with my right ear since heart surgry that no one can find out what's wrong and the cymbalta made it worse. When I yawn I get nauseous plus I get a fluttering noise in my ear. I also take diazepam 5mg as needed if I can't sleep. I was taking that long before the cymbalta. Reading through the forums I see some have good success with cymbalta and some not so good, I forgot to mention hot flashes. My wife says that's just payback for me giving her a hard time when she was going through those, I guess, from what I read here and other places that the side effects are common and vary between people. Just not sure how long I can do this. I need to see just a little improvement to encourage me to keep going and give it a chance.

Hello and I am sorry to read of the rough time you have been going through.  I was on Cymbalta about 3 years ago and always took it at night.  My P-doc pushed it up to 120mg which caused me to be very dizzy and my BP was low so eventually after lowering the dose I was weaned off of this med.

My Dr. tried me on Wellbutrin however it made my anxiety worse.............Although the cardiovascular side effects of bupropion (Wellbutrin ) appear to be mild, I personally do no feel it a good drug of choice  for patients with heart disease.

There are so many meds out there that I encourage you to be your own best advocate.  Please know I have your best interest at heart, however, I am not a Dr.

Kindly,

Kitt

 

Hi Bronco, I really feel for your situation. I wanted to mention that my therapist told me that she has a lot of issues with Cymbalta and dizziness. (And a whole host of other side effects.) I have not been on it myself, she just recommended I don't go on it as I have some vertigo/ear issues. I really hope you get this sorted and can have some peace of mind.