Interesting Medical Information - Medication, Chronic Pain & Depression

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Maybe some of you have heard about this before but I just learned it today... 28 years in to having and being treated for fibromyalgia. I'm not sure whether I mentioned this but I have been having tremors for years which have gotten progressively worse. I had an MRI which showed nothing (no, not that I don't have a brain, just nothing wrong). I remember when my elderly mother went through heightened depression the stupid doctors had her on four different anti-depressants. At that time my mother barely spoke to anyone, lived in her own world, and could barely feed herself due to tremors. After my sisters realized she was on so much medication they had her taken off of it and her tremors went away. So... my thought recently was that maybe the anti-depressant I have been on for some 25 years may be the cause of my tremors. I asked my new doctor to go off of my anti-depressant. I figure that at this point in my life if I am depressed it is due to outside circumstances, not necessarily brain chemistry which is what is the cause of chronic depression. Three weeks ago I went on a weaker (half the dosage) of my anti-depressant to begin weaning me off it. Since then my tremors have decreased considerably. I am thrilled about this. HOWEVER, my pain has increased considerably. I spoke to the pharmacist today. I said, "It seems to my knowledge that when someone is diagnosed with fibromyalgia they are put on an anti-depressant. Is this supposed to help with with pain as opposed to depression?" Her response was yes. Anti-depressants work (I don't know the proper terminology) on the neurotransmitters in the brain to help decrease pain. I suppose it makes sense. I think it is weird that we are never told the anti-depressants are to help with pain as opposed to the depression that develops due to the pain we are dealing with. Now, I have to decide whether I want to stay on the anti-depressants. Which is worse to deal with? The tremors or the pain? I went through withdrawls for about 5 days which consisted mostly of headaches (though not severe) and a bit of stomach issues but also nothing major. This has passed. Also, I think the pain may be decreasing. I should probably give it more time to see if my pain management is enough without the anti-depressants. Did anyone else know that anti-depressants were used to control pain as opposed to depression? The more you know....