Reply #109: Talk to me after you've been on Sinequan for fibromyalgia for almost 20 years...

[Hekate]

It creeps up on you, and you think you must be nuts to not have that old control over cravings. Your doc talks about diet and exercise. You get to 42, a lifetime of effortless slenderness, and by age 50 slenderness is gone for ever: over 50 shameful pounds have been gained.

Your doc says you're shortening your life span. The only thing that works to calm the cravings is fen-phen, but good thing the doc only gives you a short course. The 30 pounds that came off comes right back and brings friends. You develop sleep apnea.

Around 58 you stop the Sinequan and in two weeks the sugar cravings are gone, you just wake up one day and they're gone, although your doc doesn't want to talk about that -- but the weight will not go. An entire year at the YMCA huffing and puffing 3 times a week, and no difference.

Finally at 60 you go to a lecture on fibromyalgia and for the first time *ever* hear a neurologist say that Sinequan and other tricyclics are NOTORIOUS for causing weight gain, and that EVERYONE knows it.

And you start researching online armed with a slew of new keywords, and you find out that your entire body-chemistry is likely changed forever. But your doc just keeps reminding you that diet and exercise are key (really) and oh by the way your blood sugar is rising.

Fibromyalgia hurts like hell and prevents you from ever getting a good night's sleep, but if someone had told me 20 years ago that patients on tricyclics double or triple their chances of developing diabetes, I might have taken a pass.

Try walking a mile in my shoes. Just try it.

Hekate