[susanw]

HELP!!!
Good News--
I am FINALLY 4 days of Cymbalta Free!... I did the taper off a few balls at a time method...
and it took me 4 MONTHS to wean off of the 120mg dose I was on for 3 years.....
I would stay on each tapered-down dose for 2 weeks before decreasing again. I had HELLISH w/d
symptoms the first week, and they would lessen the 2nd week to more tolerable, but never gone.
I am now happy to say I am finally off this god-forsaken drug!
Bad news---
I CANNOT FUNCTION!
My last tapered dose was a week on 7.5 mg... My last dose was Tues. and it is now 4 days later...
and I am so so sick! I tried cold turkey a year ago and landed myself in bed...
I expected to still experience some withdrawal when I finally got off, but this is just as HORRIBLE!
Body PAIN, fuzzy head, head spins, lethargy... and over a lousy 7.5mg dose??? argh!

I am taking a bunch of supplements including Vit C, D, B's, Fish Oil, SamE (to help with the depression)

How long do I expect these symptoms to last and are they any other suggestions to help with these symptoms?
I HAVE TO get back to work on Monday and I am not sure how I am going to do this...

PLEASE send any suggestions... I WILL TRY ANYTHING at this point!

[cymbaltadeath]

I have been reading every post here and it looks like yours is close to the last one, but you have scared me. Not you but the withdrawal of the drug. I have only just started and now with christmas two days away I am going back up till after Christmas and I was heading to AZ after that but now I am staying put I don't want to put myself into any situations that will be something that I cannot handle, I am going to do the removal of balls like you did and hope I can do it. I have been trying to go off for 6 months now and had no idea how bad this was. Until I decided to look it up. Wow what a lot of iformation from people.

Thank you for your post.

[autimom4ever]

How long the withdraw last seems to coincide with 1) how many mg you were taking AND 2) how long you were taking cymbalta

I was on 60 mg/day for 5 years.

I tapered down too.

Have been on 0 cymbalta since the end of October...
Maybe it has been a week since I have had "days" of feeling ok but still have moments of withdraw symptoms (dizziness, irritability, foggy headed, etc).

I was going to try the prozac (which was prescribed 2 weeks ago for me) but I wanted to try to see if I can get through it without it (since I am this far from being off cymbalta).
I'm still holding onto the prescription because who knows if I will need to get back on "something" for anxiety... Hopefully not but who knows...

The only thing that got me through my worse days was dramamine (50 mg dose)... I tried to keep it to 1 tablet every 6-8 hours.
It really reduced the severity of the symptoms.
Since you are just starting though, you may want to "consider" prozac... It is a long hard haul... but you can do it...

Good luck