I'm sure you've all seen the TV ads for Lyrica, touting it as the "first medication approved for fibromyalgia". Here's the research backing that up. I hope as my readers try Lyrica, that they'll share a comment with us about their experiences, good or bad.
The Effect of Anxiety and Depression on Improvements in Pain in a
Randomized, Controlled Trial of Pregabalin for Treatment of Fibromyalgia.
Pain Med. 2007 Nov;8(8):633-638.
Arnold LM, Crofford LJ, Martin SA, Young JP, Sharma U.
Women's Health Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, University
of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
PMID: 18028041
Objective. To assess symptoms of anxiety and depression in a large
cohort of fibromyalgia patients and to determine the impact of these
symptoms on response of pain to pregabalin treatment.
Design. Patients completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale
at the baseline visit in a randomized, controlled trial of pregabalin
for treatment of fibromyalgia. Mean anxiety and depression subscale
scores were calculated, and proportions of patients by symptom
severity were determined. The difference between the proportion of
patients reporting anxiety and depression at baseline was tested
using McNemar's test. Baseline anxiety and depression were evaluated
as covariates by including them-as interaction terms with
treatment-in an ancova model. A path analysis evaluated the
association between improvements in anxiety and depression and pain relief.
Results. In total, 529 patients were enrolled. Significantly more
patients reported anxiety symptoms (71%) than depressive symptoms
(56%) (P < 0.0001). Improvement in pain symptoms with pregabalin
compared with placebo did not depend linearly on baseline anxiety or
depression scores. By path analysis, 75% of the pain reduction was
not explained by improvements in anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Conclusions. Anxiety symptoms were more common than depressive
symptoms in this cohort. Our results suggest patients with
fibromyalgia should be routinely assessed for the presence of both
anxiety and depression. The pain treatment effect of pregabalin did not depend on baseline anxiety or depressive symptoms, suggesting pregabalin improves pain in patients with or without these symptoms. Much of the pain reduction appears to be independent of improvements in anxiety or mood symptoms.
3 comments:
I don't understand. Does this med actually TAKE AWAY physical pain -- or just treat the anxiety / depression symptoms ??
tschuckman@aol.com
Hi, Tom! The way I read it, it takes away the pain, regardless of whether you have anxiety/depression.
My doctors were constantly handing out anti-depressants, trying to tell me that they would relieve the pain (and they didn't, because my pain was not caused by depression). So, something like this would be ideal for the patients like me who don't have depression.
Thanks, Deb. Like everything else, what works for one person will not work for another. I've been made deathly ill by stuff that other patients swear by.
But it's good to get the word out when someone has a weird reaction, so that when someone else has the same side effects, they know to connect it to the pills and not just "a new symptom".
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