Hi everyone,
I'm a newbie to the forum. Like many others on this forum in the past, I'm having withdrawal symptoms coming off of Duloxetine. In part, I have caused my own problems, because I decided to come off my daily 30mg dosage cold turkey about 10 days ago. Over this time, I've experienced worsening brain zaps and electric-like brain flashes, plus: severe tinnitus, nervousness, diarrhea and insomnia (the insomnia being the reason this post is being posted at 3:30am my time.....). I still cannot believe withdrawal symptoms from any of these depression medicines can be so severe and debilitating - very scary stuff. I'm wondering if/when I will again get some decent sleep......
Additionally, 10 days ago I started on Bupropion XL 150mg, because the Duloxetine wasn't helping my depression at all, which has gotten pretty out of hand. I think I may have heard my psychiatrist incorrectly, and will give him a call after the holiday weekend - I think he meant for me to stay on the Duloxetine when I started the Buproprion, instead of coming off.
In any event ... I think I need to start back on the 30mg of Duloxetine, and wean myself off accordingly via bead counting.
I've read over the bead counting instructions in various posts on this site, and I thought I understood them well enough. However, when I opened my first Duloxetine capsule (which was fairly small), I only see six beads in the capsule! I thought maybe this was a manufacturing mishap, but I opened two other capsule, and again found just six beads in each. So, what would you guys suggest I do to wean myself off of the six bead capsules? The beads aren't overly tiny and look like then can be ground down to powder ..... so should I try to smash up one of the beads into half bead "doses", and just go down in half-bead increments (6 to 5.5 to 5 to 4.5, etc. over time, and ultimately down to 0)?
Thanks in advance for helping out a poor soul that underestimated withdrawal effects.....
-Vinpin