10 replies to this topic

[cookie]

Hi Julie!
Cold turkey is not the way to go!. Even in the insert inside cymbalta´s package it says not to stop cold turkey. And if you say you already had a bad experience quitting Effexor cold turkey, then you shouldn´t repeat that bad experience.


It is weird because most people on this site talk about suicidal thoughts but I wonder what do they exactly think/feel. Throughout my life, I have had 3 types of suicidal thoughts. I will try to describe them.
-The first type, is exactly what you described. I think “if this is what my life is, I have no interest in living”. This type is the more frequent for me and I have these suicidal ideas when I think about depression as an illness with no cure, or when I get tired of antidepressants effectiveness going away, side effects, etc.
-The second type is a set of “dark” images, in which I see myself killing myself in different ways. At that moment I am not thinking anything, I am not thinking about how my life is. The images just appear on my head, like “someone” else is putting these images in my head. This type of suicidal thoughts have happened to me just once, when I started weaning.
-The third type, is not a “suicide thought” but a “suicide force”. It has happened to me just once, I felt this force –forcing- me to kill myself. This was very scary, because I wasn´t thinking anything before and it was hard to control. Although I managed to control it.

So among all the types of suicide thoughts I have experienced, the one you describe seems the milder one. Like you say “I haven´t tried to kill myself or wouldn´t consider it”.

I am curious to know if when your Depression hit you had these suicide thoughts??? or they appear after cymbalta use?

Please keep me poste on your weaning plan
Hugs
Cookie

[JulieH]

Day 3 - what I've been doing

Monday, I took my usual 60 mg.
Tuesday: 30 mg. No noticeable effect.
Wednesday: decided to take 30 mg again. Feeling a bit spacy, fuzzy. Can definitely tell I changed dosage, but not nearly as noticeable as if I had forgotten to take a dose.

[JulieH]

Hi Cookie! Thank you for your comments! Very interesting question about the suicidal thoughts. I've asked my friends in similar situations (divorced, financial troubles, etc) similar things. I was not really surprised to hear that they do not have the suicidal thoughts that I have said have sort of become my 'default mode' when things aren't going well, or just during quiet, lonely times.

-The first type, is exactly what you described. I think “if this is what my life is, I have no interest in living”. This type is the more frequent for me and I have these suicidal ideas when I think about depression as an illness with no cure, or when I get tired of antidepressants effectiveness going away, side effects, etc.
-The second type is a set of “dark” images, in which I see myself killing myself in different ways. At that moment I am not thinking anything, I am not thinking about how my life is. The images just appear on my head, like “someone” else is putting these images in my head. This type of suicidal thoughts have happened to me just once, when I started weaning.
-The third type, is not a “suicide thought” but a “suicide force”. It has happened to me just once, I felt this force –forcing- me to kill myself. This was very scary, because I wasn´t thinking anything before and it was hard to control. Although I managed to control it.

- I'm definitely the first type, predominantly. I'll have a lot of the "Oh, I've got so much to do at home; the kid(s) are going through such an awaful phase; my job is stressful/going badly...if this is all I've got ahead of me, I'm not interested in continuing it." I think of it sort of as "my life stretches out long before me...and I don't want it" sort of thoughts. And it's very weird, because I have a great life! Great kids, great friends, wonderful support network, great job, etc. It feels very *ungrateful* of me to have these thoughts. But I have them a lot. It even delves into planning/planning around obstacles. "Would my life insurance pay for suicide, would my ex let my parents see the kids," etc. Disturbing, but sadly "normal" thoughts for me, for quite a long while now. It is offset by knowing that I would never do it, I cannot even begin to imagine the effect on my kids' lives, etc. But truly, that's kind of the only obstacle - what it what do to the kids. That's enough for me, though, as it keeps me going every day.

- The second type, I have a lot of thoughts, too. Lots of, "if I drove fast on this curve, if I drank wine after I took this pain pill, if I..." Planning, plotting types of things.

- Third kind, I fortunately have not experienced much. A few years ago now, I used to take ambien. I took one, then couldn't remember if I took it, so I took another. Then they both kicked in, and I had a very weird suicidal experience where I was *compelled* to take more, which I did (not sure how much). My then-husband even called 911 because I told him I took it and that I wanted to die. I cannot remember if I was on cymbalta then, but I was surely on some anti-depressant. Needless to say, that was the last time I ever took ambien.

I have had a couple experiences where I could have easily taken my life, but had no interest in doing so. I use this as the benchmark of my true state of mind. Would you believe that last week I was on the roof of my 62-floor building (viewing a completed construction project) and the project manager actually said "Watch out, they haven't bolted the hand rails back in place yet." I did think, wow, if I want to do it, now is certainly the time...but I had no real interest in doing so. It was a beautiful sunny day, and it was good to be alive.

Either way, it's all very scary stuff, and I told my doctor I need to get off the cymbalta and figure out how much is me and how much is the medication. Life is too short to spend with these awful thoughts (plus I have other bad side effects like terrible sweating, grinding the heck out of my teeth, hair loss, etc). I am done with it. Blech.

[cookie]

I am trying to help my mother get off of 60mg cymbalta. Has anyone every tried opening the capsule and putting half of it in applesauce and leaving the rest in the capsule? The reason I ask this, is because she has asked the dr. to get her off of this and he doesn't want to. So I am going to help her by splitting the capsules to lessen the mg's. She actually takes this for neuropothy. She is diabetic. But she is wanting to cut back on her meds because she takes too many pills. Her cariologist suggested that she get rid of this. So please help me out if you can.

Dear Vickie:
If you are going to open a capsule and take out beads, the safest thing you can do is to re-close cymbalta´s capsule containing the remaining beads. Do not put the product in applesauce!!, you want to guarantee that cymbalta gets digested properly where it has to be digested. And if you are not going to have doctors support and supervision, please take the safest route for your mom.

I am not even sure, if putting cymbalta in another empty gelatin capsule is safe. I am not sure if the gelatin capsules sold in drugstores have the same specifications than cymbalta capsules. They may vary in moisture content.

I would like to hear from the people who have tried, the empty gelatin capsules, if it has worked for them

Hugs
Cookie

[JulieH]

Day 4 - 30 mg. Feel mildly dizzy, occasional blurry vision. Saw a pinpoint of flashing light this morning driving in to work. Nothing too bad. Definitely feel a little out of it, but bearable.

[cookie]

Day 4 - 30 mg. Feel mildly dizzy, occasional blurry vision. Saw a pinpoint of flashing light this morning driving in to work. Nothing too bad. Definitely feel a little out of it, but bearable.

Dear JulieH:
It is good that you are the first type. Although the best thing would be not to have suicide thoughts at all. From what you wrote it seems than when you are under a lot of stress is when you have this kind of thoughts.
It would be great if you had a time for youself. At least 15 minutes everyday to relax, exercise, etc.

Have you tried talk therapy to find the root of these thoughts or way to prevent them?

I also have severe hair loss!!! I hate it.

Concerning you weaning plan. I've learned through this site that alternating 60mg with 30mg or taking cymbalta 15mg every other day does not work since this way people experience withdrawals. I am not a doctor, but I've learned that it is better to take a certain dose everyday. For example it has taken me 11 weeks to get from 60mg to 19mg by doing very small weekly drops. I cant imagine what it would have been like to drop 60mg to 30mg (50 percent) in a single drop.

Concerning prozac, it could cause too much serotonin. Maybe you could use it at the end when you are at a very low dose of cymbalta.

You doctor seems like a very caring and smart person.

Hugs
Cookie.

[JulieH]

Day 5000, err, Day 5: Yuck, today sucks. Dizzy, rushing-blood sound in my ears (I read in another thread where someone described this as salt-shaker sound, "shuk,shuk" this is a great description). Really feeling the effects of dropping from 60 to 30 today. Blech.

I have vicodin for my bad back. I read in another thread that someone found this helpful to offset the withdrawl symptoms. I took 1/2 pill yesterday and just took a full pill today.

[JulieH]

HEY JULIE. I JUST READ YOUR PLANNED REGIMEN FOR WEANING OFF CYMBALTA. JUST WANTED TO INFORM YOU THAT THE ALTERNATING DOSES EVERY DAY IS REALLY BAD. IT'S BEST TO JUST DECREASE THE DOSES EVERY DAY. I TRIED THE ALTERNATING METHOD BEFORE AND ENDED UP WITH HORRIBLE WITHDRAWAL. SO I WENT BACK ON AND TRIED DECREASING THE DOSES. I DID THIS FOR A ONLY A WEEK AND DIDN'T EXPERIENCE ANY OF THE WITHDRAWAL AS BEFORE. I'VE ALSO SEEN OTHER PEOPLE ON LINE WHO HAD THE SAME EXPERIENCE WITH ALTERNATING DOSES. BUT I WISH YOU THE BEST.

Hi Dee, I didn't end up doing the alternating dose thing my doctor suggested. I just switched to 30 mg/day, down from 60 mg/day. Never had too much trouble, just the dizzy/spacey feelings, etc. No emotional troubles. Today I took my 8th dose of 30 mg, and am feeling fine at this dosage. Now I'll start gradually decreasing from the 30 mg. I think I'll be counting little white balls tonight.

[JulieH]

Day 18 - so, let's see, I started taking a 10% reduction from the 30 mg dosage at the beginning of this week. Feeling good! No noticeable side effects at all. I divided my 60 mg pills in half, then took 10% off that dose (so about 71 little white balls). I'm going to continue to reduce the dosage by 10% every week until this prescription is gone (I started on 7/26 with 30 pills of the 60mg dosage and a week's worth of 30mg capsules).

[Cat]

My sleep pattern has been really screwy. Some nights its 5-7 hrs, once in a while none. But since going from 60 mg of Cymbalta to 30 mg. I have had 2 bouts of sleeping 15-20 hrs and waking up, forcing myself to wake up and feeling dead tired. I don't drink, smoke, am on nutritional supplements...have my B.S. in Holistic Nutrition if that doesn't kill ya and here I am. I was on 120 mg of Cymbalta and 150 of Wellbutrin for 18 months. 8 weeks ago said enough...fired my dr., dropped to 60 mg for maybe 7 weeks and then just like that got a new dr and went to 30 mg. which was 3 weeks ago. I see him next week and hopefully we address changing the Wellbutrin. I can't begin to tell you guys what the 120 mg plus combining it with Wellbutrin has done to me and the horror, I mean extreme horror, my life has seen. I am alone in all this, well I have my mom but that is it. I do not call her at every scare but have had some serious moments of knowing I am so much better than this drug. I will not let it take any more than it already has from me. The sleep thing has me worried but maybe someone else can give an opinion.

[JulieH]

Oh my, I can't believe it's been over 6 weeks and I'm still not off this ridiculous medication! I've gotten lazy about weaning off, just dipping a finger in a baggie full of "dots" and taking some each day. I'm taking about 30 dots a day. And still with this ridiculous "shuck-shuck" noise in my head! Sometimes face tingling/numbness.

I am so over it. Emotionally, I haven't noticed too much change in how I'm feeling one way or the other.