Slowly Leaving Antidepressants Behind
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I had earlier posted that I felt Cymbalta wasn’t working for me as an antidepressant. Along with not working on many depression symptoms Cymbalta lowered my libido. Finally I had an appointment with a Psychiatrist and I was shocked at what she told me.
I had been having some lingering symptoms of what I thought was depression. I was unmotivated, everything seemed like a lot of work to me and like I had said before, I had zero libido. I thought that Cymbalta wasn’t working on my symptoms and that I would need to have a medication change. I was wrong.
After asking me a series of questions in which I answered as honestly as possible no matter how embarrassing it was, the psychiatrist told me something that I wasn’t expecting to hear. I was not having the symptoms that I am having due to being under medicated or being on the wrong medication. I was having these symptoms because I was over medicated.
Based on the fact that my daily dose of Cymbalta is relatively low, it appears that I don’t require an antidepressant. What? You mean that my medication which I thought was making my life a little better had actually been causing some of my most major problems? I couldn’t believe it. So what do I do now?
Cymbalta is not the type of medication that you should just stop taking all together. It can cause some withdrawal symptoms and frankly, I’m all set with going through another withdrawal. So the psychiatrist suggested that I ween myself off slowly…very slowly.
My daily dose of Cymbalta has been reduced by half and I am to take that for 3 months. After that time, I can either cut that dose in half or I can stop taking it all together. That is a pretty long weening time frame if you ask me, but then again I’m no doctor.
Today is the second day of taking 20mg of Cymbalta. I actually still am feeling some withdrawal symptoms. I have something going on that I can only describe as brain shivers. If you have never had this, be thankful. It is really a bad feeling. It doesn’t hurt or anything like that but every once in a while I get what feels like an electrical buzz inside my brain. I know that this is due to the decrease in Cymbalta because there was a time I went a week without taking the medication and I got the same sensation, although a lot more intense than what I am having now.
I’ll grab a saying out of the narcotics anonymous bag o’ sayings, ahh here we go…This too shall pass. Knowing that this withdrawal symptom will be short lived I am feeling pretty positive about weening off of Cymbalta.
It is great to feel that I don’t “need” to take some sort of drug to be a functioning human being. After all isn’t that why I stopped my substance abuse in the first place. I wanted to be free of “having” to take drugs to feel normal.
Today, although I have some weird feelings in my brain, I am proud of myself for taking steps towards becoming a better person on my own without the help of drugs. I’m also feeling good about myself for not caving in because of my “brain shivers” and taking my regular dose of Cymbalta. I never thought I would be weening myself off another drug in my lifetime but it is what it is I guess.
Posts
May 18th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I’m also stopping Cymbalta currently and know how you feel. I’ve been journaling my experience at http://lisaatucla.wordpress.com/ and it helps to be aware of the symptoms and be able to adjust.
good luck
May 18th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Honesty and action Erin, these are some of the greatest tools if recovery and it seems you are on a roll. Additionally, the common sense of talking to your doctor, taking her recommendations, and weening yourself off the medication gradually is just knocking this one out of the park.
Just as a friendly exercise, l’ll give you a scenario the old TDA would have pulled.
1) Wait to begin plan until there is an extremely stressful situation to handle
2) Immediately announce to the world of intentions to go antidepressant cold turkey
3)Wait for failure- if it doesn’t come soon enough stir up more trouble. Then drink or abuse drugs because of course we all know that it will take several weeks before the new antidpressants kick in.
4)Use as incident as proof of chemical imbalance
That’s me thinking like an alcoholic.
I am glad that you are thinking instead like someone who is very serious about their recovery. I know it may not count for much, but I am very proud of you.
The Discovering Alcoholic
May 18th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
It actually does mean a lot to hear you tell me that you are proud of me.
I think of you as one of the winners that I am trying very hard to become. Thank you for your encouraging words.
June 29th, 2007 at 5:40 am
[...] of mood altering substances. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I have made the decision to stop taking Cymbalta which is the antidepressant that I was prescribed about 2 years ago. Since I have been taking [...]
July 19th, 2007 at 4:52 am
I am coming off of 60mg of Cymbalta and I have been pretty lucky so far. My doc at least knew that I had to taper fairly slow so here’s what I did:
Doc prescribed 30mg and 20mg capsules. I took a 30 and a 20 daily for a week. Then two 20mg capsules daily for about a week. Then a 30mg capsule for about a week. My main WD symptom is dizziness so if it got too unpleasant I would revert back to the previous dose for a day or two. I now take 10mg every other day and I feel OK. I’m almost ready to stop. I gently pry open a 20mg capsule, and with a magnifying glass divide the little pellets into two piles. One pile goes back in the capsule and is taken. I’ve prepared several capsules this way. If after, taking these for a week or so I feel like crap, I’ll create 5mg capsules. So far so good with the 10mg every other day. I’ll try jumping off and see. I can always make more caps if I have to. - synchro
July 19th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Synchro - that is some really great information on how to ween off of Cymbalta correctly. It sounds like your doctor really understands just how bad the withdrawal could get if not weened very, very slowly.
Good Luck and thanks for the info.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Thank you so much Syncro for your most helpful information. My story is a horror story weening off Cymbalta. Im going to try your method and see what happens. You are lucky to have a doctor that understands. My doctor told me that there are no symtoms of withdrawal of Cymbalta and that what Im expierencing is depression I came to him in the first place for. When I dont have anymore brain freezes I will share my story to help others get off this poison.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Synchro - I wish I had been as…what’s the word…responsible will do. I wish I had been as responsible as you coming off my Cymbalta. Today makes one week and one day since I quit cold turkey and frankly, I think I would rather go through natural child birth with triplets than do this crazy shit again.
Pat - Your doctor was/is a quack and I hope to God you’ve found someone else since this post. I’m sorry you had to go through it.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I have been taking cymbalta since September at 60 mg. I don’t feel depressed, rather, what happens to me is that I was having a lot of general anxiety that would get in the way of being able to sleep. I’d lay in bed and toss and turn worrying about crap that I didn’t need to be worrying about at 2 am. I also had a lot of trouble with concentration. I know that I a symptom of depression, which I have had in the past, along with being really irritable and feeling hopeless, but thankfully, never suicidal. Anywho, my MD switched me from Celexa in Sept to Cymbalta hoping to address some of my attention issues. It worked really, really well. It was my adderall! I was able to read for school, get my papers out one after another, etc…, and slept fine with none of the sexual side effects that I had on Prozac from way back in the day. I am really bummed because I had to d/c my Cymbalta because it made my blood pressure go too high. Now that I’ve been off of it for about a week, my BP is back to normal. The thing is that I just stopped the Cymbalta cold turkey and I have been having what people describe as brain shivers from time to time. It doesn’t hurt, just feels weird and I get a bit dizzy, but it comes and goes. I hope to get on Celexa again, maybe at a higher dose cuz it was OK at 40 mg, but maybe I should have tried 60 mg. Does anyone know if the brain sensations are dangerous? Can something bad happen? seizures? I’d hate that to happen. I want to just tough it out as long as there are not major consequences.
December 31st, 2007 at 8:42 pm
[...] my Cymbalta withdrawal symptoms so severe? In a previous post I had explained that I was slowly weening off Cymbalta with my doctor’s guidance. This started with me reducing my daily dose in half. I felt the [...]
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am
I am so glad I found this website! I went off my Cymbalta (cold turkey) about a week and a half ago. Three days ago I started having the “brain zaps”. I went to my Dr., he said it wasn’t withdrawals, but he didn’t know what it could be. All he did was blood work and sent me home to suffer. Thanks to this website I know what’s wrong with me! Cymbalta is an evil drug!!!!!
March 6th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I just found this website. Talk about eye opening. I’ve been taking cymbalta 60mg for about 3 years, as a treatment for my fibromyalgia. In that respect it worked very well. I am now on my fourth day of ‘cold turkey’ because my doctor won’t refill it till I see him. Thank goodness that’s today. So for the past (hell) 4 days, I’ve been going through major withdrawals. I’ve never felt this crappy in my life!!! Horrible headaches, nightmares, brain zaps(which really scare me)nausea, cranky, to top it off i’m getting my panic attacks back!!! Somehow I’ve got to get off this evil drug. Anyone have any natural remedies for fibro and panic attacks? Thanks for listening
March 24th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I’ve been taking 90ml of Cymbalta for two years. It was discovered last May that I had very low blood platelets. I’ve had an 8 hour infusion of a blood product and most recently had 4 rounds of chemo trying to correct what they were calling ITP. I now find that a side effect to Cymbalta is low platelets. My insurance company has paid over $100,000 for a the tests and procedures and to find out it was Cymbalta really makes me mad. Is anyone else having the same issue? Wish me luck on getting off this nightmare….