[greeneyes]

I'm on day 3 of going from 20mg to 0mg. I've got all the dizziness, lightheadedness, nausea, malaise, jumpy vision, light sensitivity, brain zaps etc. The brain zaps started as being more like a camera flash going off in my brain. Then it was brain and vision flashes, but now I have brain buzz too. My neck is stiff. I keep clenching my jaw day and night.

I started Cymbalta after a period of unavoidable sleep deprivation that lasted almost a month. All the poor quality of sleep caused anxiety, irritability and depression. I also had a lot of stress in my life at the time. Well, the stressful circumstance is gone, and I get plenty of sleep now... although no thanks to Cymblata for the sleep. I had the worst insomnia on it so my Dr prescribed Trazadone to help me sleep. I take 25mg a night, or sometimes just half a pill. I'm not currently discontinuing the Trazadone. One drug at a time.

I also take generic Adderall (5mg, non-extended release) for my ADD on an as-needed basis. During the Cymbalta discontinuation symptoms I'm not going to take any Adderall.

I've never made it past day 3. Yesterday was day 2, and I came looking for help and found this forum. I went to my (other) doctor about the use of one dose of Prozac during the weaning process (Urgent Care because it was a Saturday). The problem is, he doesn't deal with anti-depressants and he doesn't know the equivalent of Prozac to Cymbalta and couldn't recommend a dose. What is everybody doing here?

I filled the script and I took 10mg of Prozac yesterday. Things got worse before they got better. I felt like I was having labor contractions in my skull. I had two "brain contractions" and then I HAD to sleep it off. I napped for a couple of hours and I woke up feeling better. The edge had been taken off the symptoms. This morning I woke up feeling nearly normal except for some tingling in my brain, eyes and ears. It's only been 3 hours since I woke up and now I'm feeling worse again... just like yesterday.

I hate this and I wish I knew what to do.

[greeneyes]

Thanks guys.

The Adderall shouldn't be a big deal. I don't take it that often to begin with. I probably haven't taken it in 2 weeks so why start now, right? I own my own business so I can take it easy this week if I want to.. and I want to.

I found the big Prozac thread. I don't think I'll be one of the lucky ones who can take one dose and then be perfectly back to normal. I took 10mg yesterday and 10mg today and... I just feel like being still or sleeping. The symptoms are eased some, but still annoying a-plenty.

Unfortunately, I do have to work in an hour... for about 2 hours.. and those two hours will be physically strenuous and I'm not very hopeful for how it's going to go. I scheduled this before I decided to go off of Cymbalta so I don't feel like I have a choice. Lord, have mercy.

[Attorney_Victim]

Greeneyes,
I'm one of the people who used Prozac during withdrawal. I started taking 20 mgs on Day 4 of withdrawal. My psychiatrist, who was familiar with Antidepressant Discontinuation Syndrome (the nice medical term for our withdrawal) prescribed it at 20 mgs once daily; with the instruction that I could increase that to 40 mgs after 1 week if I felt I needed to. Within 24 hrs of my first 20mg dose, I felt some relief...the symptoms were not totally gone, but they were a little better (I still spent 3-4 days basically in bed). Within 4 days, I felt great. I did still have a few bad days after that, but nothing too bad. After starting the Prozac, the nausea and diarrhea stuck around for 1-2 weeks. After about 2 weeks, my energy level was still kind of low, so I increased my dose to 40mgs...that sent me into "mania" so I went back down to 20mgs. I stayed on 20mgs for about 5 weeks, then stopped it (with my dr's permission) and didn't have any problems. I've been off Prozac for about 2.5 weeks now, and I feel great. You mentioned having a bad headache, the bad headaches seem to be a common withdrawal symptom, I had some bad ones and I took Ibuprofen which helped.

I hope your work went okay today. Hang in there...it does get better!!