Hello:
I was on Prozac for about 8 months at 20 mg then was upped to 40 mg. After about a year it seemed to stop working. So at the end of August my doctor changed me over to Cymbalta thinking the SNRI might help better. Started at 30 mg and then was to go up to 60 mg after 1 week. All was fine but after on 60mg for one week was sweating and hot flashes all the time, couldn't stand it. The 30 mg seemed to be okay. So after consulting with Dr. moved back down to 30 mg.
After being on it for a number of weeks I had gained another 10 pounds, my face was breaking out and I was developing some additional anxiety symptoms. I skipped a couple of days and started to feel better. I figured since with the short half life of this drug if I was going to have any problems coming off it would happen right away. I was fine until about 7 days after and then it hit me.
Severe migraine, almost took a trip to the ER which is not like me at all. It took three doses of my migraine meds, vomiting and sick to tame it down. It came on sudden and didn't really feel completely well until the next day when I finally took a Cymbalta pill that night as my head was still threatening a migraine. It took 2 hours and I started to feel better. Also, I realized I was hearing a metronome like sound in my head for a number of days prior but was gone the morning after I took the Cymbalta.
After I got sick I did some research and found all the horrible stories of withdrawal from this. I am kicking myself as when I went on the first drug I told my doctor I didn't want anything like Paxil as I had heard horror stories of people trying to get off. But when this was suggested it seemed like a good idea and I didn't check it out before starting it.
I am calling my doctor to ask for a protocol to get off of this. Have I been on it long enough to need to do the bead counting method or will I have other options? My capsules have different size pieces of medicine they are not perfect, round, same size pieces - does this matter?
Also, does it help to go onto something else while going off, such as Lexapro or back to the Prozac with a longer half life, get off the Cymbalta and then get off the other. At this point I don't want to be on anything and see what I can do on my own. Finally, since being on these drugs I have had many more migraine headaches, requiring their own medicine to get me through. Has anyone had migraines as a side effect of these meds?
Thank you.