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[Mislead!]

Hi, I'm new to this site. I have been on Cymbalta for 2 years. I tried to get off it last year though the step down or "weaning" plan my doctor suggested, only to return quickly to the full dosage as the nurse at my doctor's office suggested I may not be ready to stop since I was suddenly experiencing severe (worse than before starting Cymbalta) depression and crying spells (I also experienced thoughts of suicide, but did not tell her as I felt I could control them). During this time, I also experienced severe dizziness, nausea and fatique, but did not connect them with the decrease in Cymbalta. I just thought I had gotten some weird bug. Later, when a new employee at my office, called in sick to work for days at a time due to severe dizziness (along with many other symptoms that she noted when she was finally able to come back to work), the pieces started to come together and make sense. I had experienced the beginning of withdrawal! And, luck me (and anyone else that is on this stuff), if I ever hoped to get off Cymbalta, I would most likely have to suffer again and to a greater extent! Now that I am trying again to stop taking Cymbalta, I have again taken my physician's "weaning" advice and have over the past month and a half, decreased to taking no Cymbalta at all. I have and continue to experience negative symptoms including, severe dizziness, nausea, severe headaches, head and eye pressure, irritability, frequent crying, thoughts of suicide (again, I have not reported this elsewhere as I feel confident that I can control any action resulting from these thoughts especially now that I know they are linked to withdrawal from this drug), the list seems endless! I am in disbelief! Pharmaceutical companies are supposed to create drugs to offer help, research these drugs THOROUGHLY, and provide ALL the information available to physicians AND consumers for consideration of whether the drug and it's side effects (withdrawal side effects too!) are acceptable. In this case, there has clearly been either inadequate research or undisclosed withdrawal side effects. Cymbalta's package insert only warns not to stop medication suddenly due to the risk of specific side effects and to follow physician's instructions to avoid specific side effects. This kind of incomplete information MUST be illegal! I would have NEVER taken Cymbalta had I been FULLY informed of the potential (and apparently common) withdrawal side effects. I have been on antidepressants without suffering anything close to this! I will continue to research the possibility of class action or other suit and post here again should I find any helpful information. My symptoms, though extremely difficult have not been as bad as others have experienced (including suicide!). Before again starting down the road off Cymbalta, I read on a website (sorry can't remember which one-I read so many trying to educate myself from a patient perspective -obviously more than comprehensive that what the makers of Cymbalta choose to share) of nutritional supplements being somewhat helpful. I have been taking "Women's Living Green Liquid-Gel Multi" made by Irwin Naturals for many months and found that they also offered "Stress-Defy Balanced & Relaxed" so I bought some and began taking it the day before I started decreasing my Cymbalta mg dosage. It is the only thing I did differently than when I tried to come off Cymbalta last year. I definitely still had side effects, but not to the extent of others and not to the extent that last year's temporary decreased dosage suggested. I haven't yet found a topic (not that it's not there somewhere-if I find it I'll post this there too) on this site of help aids, but anything short of going back on Cymbalta (or suicide) is worth a try!

[schmb01]

At the top of this site is a link to theroadback.org, and it offers many nutrional supplements to help with weaning off of many drugs.

I bought a whey protein powder,and a high end Omega 3 supplement. I use the Omega 3 religiously, and the protein drink probably every other day.

Omega 3 is supposed to be like a natural prozac, in that it has brain calming properties, and I do believe it is helping me.