[chowee]

Been using 60mg for about 1 yr now and i want to stop. its getting very costly and I can no longer afford $145CAD a month. I tried skipping days in between caps but I got really sick the days without. I get nauseated by afternoon and slight dizziness. Even by the time I take it the day after, it doesn't take effect till late afternoon(I take in the morning). Sooooo, if I can get a proposed plan that has worked for those who are sensitive to skipping pills, that'd be great. Please help...this skipping days is not helping me. i've never had these issues with citalopram or paxil. This is killing me.....
Thanks so much

[ALittleBird]

I am also on 60mg, and have been on for about 6yrs for pain for nerve injury. I can tell you what I have started to do to taper off and which seems to working very well so far. I have determined that each 60mg capsule contains between 450-465 grains inside. This averages to about 7.5 grains per 1mg. Luckily for me when I was doing my counting of the grains on a college ruled piece of note paper I noticed that each line is equivalent to 7-8grains; so bingo each line is equivalent to 1mg. Therefore I don't have to count every little grain everytime I want to reduce my medication, all I do is count the number of lines on the paper to determine how many mg I am taking out of each capsule.

I have been reducing my medication literally by 1mg each day for the last week and haven't had any adverse side effects -yet. If I do start to have adverse withdrawal I will just stop at that dose until I stablize and then continue with removing 1mg thereafter until I am off Cymbalta. In the past when I would forget a dose my body would tell me within a couple of hours; i would get pretty typical withdrawal symptoms of confusion,brain zaps, etc. I know that this will take a couple of months at least, but I think by doing a very controlled and gradual reduction withdrawal symptoms can be managed.

I would not recommend skipping doses (i.e. Taking 60mg every other or third day), doing a large reduction at one time (i.e. What most physicians will try to have you do, by immediately going down to 30mg for a week or 2, or going cold turkey (this is very dangerous).

I hope this helps and good luck!

[ALittleBird]

Chowee,
I thought about this again and realized that I made small error above; each line one a sheet of paper is equvalent to 2 days not one and therefore is the same as 2mg not 1. Sorry 'bout that, but otherwise the rest holds true.

[Meli]

I followed a plan suggested by another memeber and it appears to work !!

Go to a compound pharmacy and they will count the beads etc and put them in new capsules... I went from 60mg, to 30mg,to 15mg, then was about to start 7.5mg, when I discovered I was pregnant and had to stop immediately. I am no longer pregnant

I still had some withdrawl symptoms like head zaps, however have started on prozac (as recommended as part of the original plan) and the head zaps are gone...

No cymblata for me.... Good Luck !!

[chowee]

So, since I posted the first post, I went from 60mg to 30mg. I stayed on 30mg for 1.5 weeks. I felt pretty sick for the first 4 days then my body seemed to be ok with the 30mg. Now, I'm on day 3 of cutting down to 15mg. I am not doing so hot. you can just call me barf bucket. My head is spinning like mad and i haven't really been able to sleep either for the past few days. My body is a disaster.
For going on Prozac as recommended by many, how does that work? Do I cut down to a certain dosage of cymbalta first then switch to prozac??? then ween of prozac? I just want to be off this awful drug now. =(