Posted by Gog on July 30, 2006, at 22:16:53
In reply to Re: Cymbalta withdrawal- oversleeping? etc, posted by cymbaltaVictim on July 29, 2006, at 12:48:03
Hi. You are not alone in your withdrawal symptoms. I took cymbalta for one year and decided to go off for some similar and some different reasons, weight gain, constipation, but also I felt like it was a good time to try being off of them. I didn't realize until I read other people's posts that my fatigue (afternoon nap almost every day) was due to the drug and not due to depression.
I read and researched and prepared for it, but my doctor did a quicker drop down than was recommended. I went from 60mg to 30 mg and decided to stay on that dose for a month (based on a book I was reading "The Antidepressant Solution"), then dropped down to zero. The actual taper that was recommended was 60, 40, 20, 0.
The first drop to 30mg was uncomfortable for a few days, then my body seemed to stabilize. The drop to zero was terrible, dizziness, nausea, headaches, had cold sore outbreaks during both dose decreases, muscle pains, bad dreams, hot flashes, anxiety, feeling angry, frustrated, depressed...then moments of feeling fine. The worst effects peaked at about day 8 then very slowly started to go down. Some days I would feel fine and then I would feel the withdrawal effects again. It really took about 6 weeks until I started to feel normal again and in that time I kept wondering if I ever would be the same. It was incredibly frustrating.
There are much slower ways to taper and what I have learned through reading and talking to my docotr is that withdrawal can be very unique to the individual. I have read in this forum and in the book I mentioned about people doing incredibly slow tapers and about people quitting cold turkey (not recommened at all). I have also read (and my doctor told me-- after the fact) that a one time dose of prozac can help the withdrawal symptoms since prozac takes longer to get out of your system.
How you come off of the drug depends on you and your body, but I am not sure that taking the drug every few days is going to be the best way to go about things. It will probably make you feel like you are quitting cold turkey, which seems to create the most severe withdrawal symptoms. A gradual taper, either in milligrams or reducing the number of beads in each capsule is probably best.
Scott (who I believe is listed as "SLS") has some methods that he posted in this forum which may be useful to you.
Things that worked for me or that I did to get through this: The nausea was terrible, but when I did eat I felt tons better. I drank lots of water. I took Benadryl, which I heard would help. I'm not entirely sure if it did or not, but since my allergies were acting up too, I used it. Took a mulitvitamin (I thought I read somewhere that B-vitamins can help.) I went to this website from the book and my sister go through the list of withdrawal symptoms with me and I told her all the ones I was experiencing.
http://www.prozacbacklash.com/antidepressantSolution.html
This was to help me show someone else what I was going through and to help me realize I wasn't going crazy. (I didn't find this forum until a couple of weeks later...when I was still feeling crummy and looking for answers). I also occasionally used the graph in the book (also on the website) to chart my withdrawal symptom severity on each day (I didn't do this daily because I felt too terrible.). I did this so I could see that I was improving, albeit slowly, over time. I also continued with acupuncture treatments and seeing my psychologist as well (which I had already been doing).
You will make it through this. I would just focus on one thing at a time. If you have had weight gain, don't worry about it right now. Take care of yourself and then move onto the next goal. Take care and keep us posted.
poster:Gog
thread:466069
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20060627/msgs/672160.html