4 replies to this topic

[Willa9]

Hello--

I am so grateful that this forum is here. Like others who have posted here, I don't have a lot of help with going off cymbalta. I am living overseas and it is a very new drug here. When I told my doctor I was having symptoms, it was the first she'd ever heard of it.

A lot of my questions have been answered by reading here but I have a couple more that I hope someone can help me with.

I was taking 30 mg for the past couple of years. I cut down from 60 to 40 then 30, because it was making me so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open. Finally, since I was feeling like I was napping a lot of my life away, I decided to switch to another anti-depressant. I'm now on generic Wellbutrin, but that's another topic.

After going cold turkey and having terrible brain zaps the first couple of days, I found this forum and decided to go off cymbalta slowly. That was 3 months ago. I took 15 mg a day for 1 month, 10 mg a day for 1 month, and then 7-8 mg a day this past month. Tonight is my last pill.

The past couple of days I'm having really bad brain zaps. It seems odd, because I didn't start getting them again until I got down to this very low dose. In other words, cutting the dose from 100% to 50% didn't bother me; cutting from 50% to 33% didn't bother me; but cutting from 33% to 25% and the zaps are back. My questions:

1) Is there some kind of threshold that you need to take to avoid the zaps? In other words, dropping down to 7-8 mg had a drastic effect?

2) I thought that weaning off for 3 months would be long enough, and from what I've read here it seems like other people wean off more quickly. Is it unusual to still be having symptoms?

3) And finally, caffeine seems to exacerbate the problem. Has anyone else noticed that?

Thanks a lot for any insight that you could provide, I appreciate it.

Willa

[Debbie M.]

Hi and Welcome,

I found the lower doses to be harder. I found that in order to not have any withdrawal I had to remove a single bead each day. I did this from around 70 beads. Even if I removed 3 or 4 beads the symptoms came back. So I would go back to one bead a day. The even dose reduction was what kept me from having the symptoms. I cannot believe all that I went through when weaning. Everything from flu like symptoms to raging anger. It was so amazingly awful. Going slow is the key even when you get impatient and just want off the stuff.
I hope this helps you,

Debbie M.

[Willa9]

Hi and Welcome,

I found the lower doses to be harder. I found that in order to not have any withdrawal I had to remove a single bead each day. I did this from around 70 beads. Even if I removed 3 or 4 beads the symptoms came back. So I would go back to one bead a day. The even dose reduction was what kept me from having the symptoms. I cannot believe all that I went through when weaning. Everything from flu like symptoms to raging anger. It was so amazingly awful. Going slow is the key even when you get impatient and just want off the stuff.
I hope this helps you,

Debbie M.

Thank you so much Debbie, it helps a lot. So if you remove one bead a day, it takes just over 2 months to be off them completely. Is this right? Are you completely off them now?

I really couldn't imagine actually counting the beads--I did roughly 1/2, 1/3 and then 1/4, but if it works so be it! Looks like I need to get another prescription.

thanks a lot, extremely helpful--

Willa

[Debbie M.]

Yes I am off of it now and have been since July 27, 2010. I reduced just like you. I started out at 60 mg and eyeballed it down until about what I thought was about 10 mg. 9 beads equals 1 mg. Take the amount you think will get you symptom free and take that for as long as you need to to make you feel better. Then reduce one bead a day. It worked for me. If I tried to reduce more than 7 to 9 beads a week I would have symptoms. If I tried to reduce even 3 or 4 beads at a time and just stay on that dose for a few days I would have symptoms. Slow and steady was the key for me. Deb

[cookie]

Hi Willa:
I just read your post. How are you feeling?? On which dosage are you know???
I have weaned slowly from 60mg to 13mg, and I think I haven´t had brain zaps as people describe them here.
It caught my attention that you got the brain zaps once you reached lower dosages.
What are your symptoms now???
hugs
Cookie