Antidepressants are not an effective treatment for chronic pain, a University of Sydney study has found.
The research paper analysed more than 150 clinical trials and found Tricyclic antidepressants such as Amitriptyline helped with headaches, IBS and nerve pain but they offered no real relief for other pain conditions.
Leah Dwyer has been in pain for 15 years after suffering a fall while running, which triggered a neuromuscular condition.
“It was all about pain daily nightly pain pain pain, constant,” the 59-year-old said.
“Remember that time you woke up with a crick in your neck? That is how I feel every single morning, unable to rotate properly.”
She was prescribed two anti-depressants to treat her chronic neck pain but neither worked.
“It didn’t change my pain experience it just made me really tired really nauseous and often dizzy.”
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It’s long been thought antidepressants act on chemicals in the brain like serotonin to help relieve pain.
A University of Sydney-led review has found while some offer relief, most are ineffective.
“Given that they are much more commonly prescribed for chronic pain, we did find evidence was they were ineffective or inconclusive,” lead researcher Giovanni Ferreira said.
The study did, however, find Seratonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors such as Duloxetine were effective in treating back pain, knee osteoarthritis, postoperative pain, pain related to cancer treatment and nerve pain.
Ferreira said exercise is shown to be effective when treating chronic pain, while one key takeaway from the study is there is no quick fix.
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