Antidepressants and chronic pain.

How do they act on chronic pain? I'm on Effexor-XR (an SNRI; now up to 450mg/day), my first AD, as of fairly recent and I've had improvement in my perception of pain caused by an eight-year-old severe dry-eye condition (MGD). I'm wondering, is it masking the real pain or reducing the accumulated er, neuropathic (?) / extra chronic pain?

[aheart27]

  They increase the neurotransmitters in the spinal cord to reduce pain, but it could take awhile so be patient and you should see a difference. You may need more than that but you won't have to rely on only narcotics which you end up building a tolerance to and have to take more. I really believe in antidepressants for chronic pain, for me anyway, everyone is different. Good luck with it! =)