By accident my primary care was on vacation and my refills for Cymbalta 60mg and Wellbutrin XL 300mg where up. The back-up doctor has a policy of not renewing refills.
So there I was two days ago with no meds and the pharmacy refusing to supply any. Something niggled in the back of my mind about not stopping this stuff suddenly.
What I have read over the past two days has both shocked and horrified me as no one ever indicated there was any possibility of a withdrawal from these. I normally am very medical (EMT - 14 years) so never take anything at face value. The fact that none of the items (serotonin, dopamine, neuroepinephrine, ...) that these drugs are meant to affect is even measurable has always bothered me. Feeling weak? Take blood glucose.. 56? Take glucose feel better.
I am 49 and was started on these about a year ago, just after I had suffered a brain injury. I was started on 30mg Cymbalta and when I said I felt nothing and there were no side effects, my Doctor upped it to 60mg. Still no side effects nor did I feel any better or different, so all is well, right? Then he decided to add Wellbutrin XL 150mg, and same story, no ill effects and no noticeable positive ones, so why not make it 300mg?
So here we are today. I read with horror the withdrawal symptoms and the length of the withdrawal, but it really doesn't bother me at this stage. All of the symptoms I have anyway from my brain injury from a year ago (dizziness, insomnia, trouble sleeping, brain fog, cannot read anything more than a couple of sentences, do not have any depth perception or pro-preception of my limbs when I am not looking at them directly, diplopia, nystagmus, etc), so how could withdrawal be any worse I ask myself? I guess I am about to find out. To make matters even more fun, no one bothered to check my pituitary function since the brain injury until a couple of months ago and it turns out my hypothalamus isn't telling my pituitary glad to release anything... (saving it for something)? So I produce no ACTH, therefore no cortisol, no testosterone, and therefore no LH or FSH. On the morning tests, my testosterone was 9.2 on a scale of 300-890. On the same test my cortisol, ACTH, FSH, and LH were all <1 (ACTH <5 - lowest possible reading). My endo does not know how I was even alive or functioning at all. So they put me on hydrocortisone replacement and testosterone replacement therapy - for life.
This is day two and I only notice a splitting headache going up the left side of my head which Advil doesn't even get a sniff at. Apart from that, business as usual.
Wish me luck.