3 replies to this topic

[bcgirl45]

Hi, my name is Tracy, I now realize to not expect to get better over night but the prozac is helping a little to stop major withdrawals. I thought I was out of the woods as last cymbalta was now 8 days ago and last prozac 6 days ago, but withdrawal symptoms ( physiological-heavy brain, light sensitive, dry eyes, panic waves, and emotionally- a little rollarcoasterish) started to creep in so I took 10mg prozac and benadryl to sleep today. (My brain can't handle 20mg at once with prozac-learned that through trial and error, it's in my profile story.) It is helping relieve some discomfort and I have written my story under my member profile bcgirl45. (Cold turkeyed off of klonopin 57days ago, - physician never told me not to. Go figure). Had major withdrawals with that one and wanted to prevent cymbalta withdrawals as it sounds the same, and as of today I recognized what I was feeling , hence, back on the prozac temporarily.) Had to get cymbalta out as it was really making me physiologically sick. Read my story if you think it may help you. I hope it gives someone strength. Think slow and easy wins the race for me (and I'm impatient as we all are to move forward out of this) . I'll keep reading, keep posting, you guys are awesome, really don't know what I'd do without y'all. And I'll post my recovery doing this prozac bate and switch and and keep you posted. My goal, To be off the prozac as well and feel emotionally and phsically healthy, happy. Right? God Bless, sighned Tracy ( Being more diligent to excersise patience and do prozac dosage structured) I sound normal right? I think I'm getting used to felling emotionally spent. Rollarcosterish.

[nursedeborah]

Have been off 60 mg for 2 weeks, the first week on 30 mg went fine. however, this past week - on one day, off one day has been terrible. hot flashes, sleepiness, heavy, dry eyes, brain shocks whenever i just turn my eyes. i am so glad i looked this up and found out other people had this problem. i am afraid to go completely off of it as i have to work every day and cannot keep on being this unsteady physically. i did ask my doctor to prescribe prozac in case i had severe problems. I did have severe problems with getting off effexor and ended up in the hospital with extremely high blood pressure. tracy, i hope you are feeling good by now and thanks for sharing your experience. Teresa

Teresa,
What we have learned here is how to slowly wean off this drug.
A big NO NO to skipping day, and cold turkey. If you think it's
bad now just wait.

There is a great weaning system that can keep you able to function
and your also in control if it needs to be changed at times. It does
take a very long time to get off this crap, but it's so worth it.

Read several posts from bsck a few months ago, like even Oct. and Nov.
There are so really good stoies, and great info back then.

If you need help let me know.

Debbie

[bcgirl45]

Have been off 60 mg for 2 weeks, the first week on 30 mg went fine. however, this past week - on one day, off one day has been terrible. hot flashes, sleepiness, heavy, dry eyes, brain shocks whenever i just turn my eyes. i am so glad i looked this up and found out other people had this problem. i am afraid to go completely off of it as i have to work every day and cannot keep on being this unsteady physically. i did ask my doctor to prescribe prozac in case i had severe problems. I did have severe problems with getting off effexor and ended up in the hospital with extremely high blood pressure. tracy, i hope you are feeling good by now and thanks for sharing your experience. Teresa

[bcgirl45]

Hi Teresa, I had "high blood pressure" as well when I quit klonopin which started my journey to discontinue anti-depressants. 30 mg of cymbalta is hard to discontinue from for a great many. I had to undo my capsuls and reduce from 60 mg to 50 to 40mg to 15 (quickly over 3 wks because I was so sick on cymbalta) and then introduced prozac. (They sell 20mg of cymbalta in the U.S. as well but not in Canada). Anyway, please check out //hubpages.com/weaning-off-cymbalta-what-the-doctors-dont-tell-you. A woman named Byee who stopped taking cymbalta used prozac for only a month(she e-mailed me as well with information). She was under her doctor's care. I printed her story and took it to my doctor. I used prozac for the end of my taper because that is when I finally wanted to try it, yes, after being scared in regards to a new host of problems with a new med. Nov. 29th/09-Dec 8th/09. 5mg-10mg per day as 20mg felt too high of a dosage, but "no high blood pressure" for me on this one. I was also told by my doctor, people can get serotonin syndrome (too much serotonin from both meds together). He informed me that 30mg of cymbalta was low enough to start prozac had I introduced it earlier. I had no problem getting off prozac as I was on such a short time. And I noticed after the second day of taking prozac it I started to feel less cymbalta withdrawals. I am felling much better today. The eye problem for me is starting to dissapate, it is day 18 off the prozac today and 33 off cymbalta. SOME DOCTERS are aware of using prozac short term "just to alleviate cymbalta withdrawal and then discontinue prozac". I did this under my doctors "OK". I felt I had few options. Prozac has a longer half life (one of the longest, that's why it's being used like this) so it stays in your body longer to mask cymbalta withdrawal symptons. Everybody being so very different as you know, "tolerate medications differently even when going on". Talking to my doctor, BYEE from the above site who had success, reading success stories from cymbaltasurvivers.com , helped me while gathering information that it COULD work and luckily it did. So, that's all I can give you from my experience, thank-you for sharing on yours and letting me know you had the eye discomfort symptom because I hadn't seen any of that on any sites to refer to. I really hope you find a taper that works for you. Good Luck Teresa, Sincerely, God Bless, Tracy aka-bcgirl45 (100% med. free finally)