[TechStudent90]

Hi,

I've been taking 60mg/day of Cymbalta for the past 2 months, after a month taking 20mg twice a day. At first it was helping my anxiety but now it's just making me more stressed out, and I've been experiencing nausea, irritability, and sudden onsets of depression.

I want to get off this medicine but after reading about the horror that people have gone through with the withdraw symptoms I don't even know where to start. My parents aren't really taking it very serious and are convinced that I can just "go to the doctor and they'll help you", and that any withdraw symptoms I experienced when I missed my daily dose was just my anxiety. They want me to just keep taking it until my doctor tells me to stop, which from what I've seen could be never.

Does anyone have any advice for where I can begin? Would the withdraw from being on it only 2 months be as bad as someone who has been on it a year and then stops? I want to get off it as soon as possible but I'm afraid that if I just stop I'll experience the full withdraw symptoms people have described and go into shock.

Please advise! Thanks!

[iolanthe16]

Hey Techstudent90-

I was on Cymbalta for anxiety and didn't really enjoy my time on it. And from my research, it was something I was cautious about coming off. I weaned over 8 weeks:

alternated each day 60/30mg for two weeks (in Canada, we can only get 60 and 30 mg pills)
Did 30mg for two weeks
alternated 30/15mg for two weeks
15mg for two weeks (I dumped half the granules from the 30 out, but not into the bin, will be returning the little balls to the pharmacist for safe disposal)
then I came off.

My energy and mood was off for much of the 8 weeks but manageable. I went to work every day.

Once I came off the meds, I had 5 days of extreme fatigue (my body felt like lead) and frequent brain zaps and really cloudy thinking. Luckily I am on two weeks holiday from work....I wouldn't have wanted to be near work these five days.

And after 5 days, I started to feel good again.

Now it's Dec 27 (took my last pill on dec 16) and I honestly feel great. The brain zaps are calmed down quite a bit, energy is back and I have the ability to feel empathy again (YAY). I felt that on my time on Cymbalta, I didn't really give a crap about much. Now I daydream, feel emotions more clearly etc.

Everyone is different and depending on what your main issues are, I imagine withdrawal from this drug would differ from person to person. I feel lucky that I am over the hump and, here's hoping, it's all good moving forward.

My best advice - try to convince your doc (without parental units involved) that the drug isn't for you and find other alternatives to manage anxiety. It could be another drug, or it could be alternative medicine therapies (are your vitamins and nutrients in check? do you exercise? yoga and acupuncture? counselling and coping mechanisms?)

Good luck.
cb
Good luck.