1 reply to this topic

[MaureenV]

After 3 years I am slowly ending my engagement to cymbalta ,its over we are getting on each others nerves, mostly my nerves.
It has been a month I was as high as 120 mgs a day but mostly 60. I am now down to about 15.
My question since I can not locate batteries for my scale is how many beads are in a 30 mg pill. I need to be a little more accurate since its really getting to me at this stage. Is there a easy way to count beads? I am trying to divide the pills in half,I could be off by 10 beads easily. Thanks.

30mg has 270. No need to actually count the beads until you get to a much lower level.

I only started counting once I got below 10mg. Before that, I used clear gelatine capsules, and just did it visually. I checked the count a few times as was very accurate.

regards, Maureen.

[MaureenV]

Maureen, I was on 60 mg and counted all the way to 30. I stopped and have been on 30 for 2 weeks now just because I was tired of counting all the time (I would count a week's worth of beads in a single sitting). When you say you did it visually, about how much did you actually remove at a time? I feel like if I did it visually, it would be different each time and therefore mess up the weaning process? I hope you know what I am trying to say.

Do you mean you're making 30mg doses from 60mg capsules?

Or you're now using prescribed 30mg capsules?

I had both 60mg and 30mg left: I was on 30mg for a month, then 60mg for a few weeks (terrible side effects) so back to 30mg and decided to come off. I was doing alternate days unsuccessfully when I found this site and the recommendations about using empty gelatine capsules. I tried taking 15mg per day, but had to increase that to 20mg to get full relief from withdrawal symptoms. (That's all just to give you a bit of background.)

The way I did it you WILL need to buy a bottle of the empty gelatine capsules, which are less than $20 for about 100, so more than enough to see you through.

I made 20mg doses by dividing a 60mg into three capsules. The empty ones are larger than Cymbalta capsules and are transparent, so it's easy to see if the 'level' is the same in all of them. (That gives you three days of 20s at a time.) About five minutes work.

Then I dropped to 17.5. I made 4 x 15s with the 60mg capsule. I also had a container of beads, and these I used to 'top up' the 15s to 17.5, by adding about 22 beads to each. Took about five minutes and again, you have four days worth of doses. I kept these in a little container with a sticky note saying what the dose was. If at the end of however many I'd made up I still had some withdrawal symptoms, I'd made up another batch.

15mg was easy: 60mg divided by four - no counting. (Divide into two, then divide each of those into two so you're as accurate as possible)

12mg also easy: 60mg divided by five.

10mg also easy.

9mg = 10mg capsules less 9 beads. I also made a note in my diary as to what dose I was taking each day.From then on I went down 1mg at a time.

Once down to 5mg I would divide a 10mg every second day.

By the time you're down to that dose it can be just as easy to count beads and put them in a capsule.


regards, Maureen.