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[L.E.P.]

I have wanted to be OFF cymbalta for 2 years, but it's been a long road. At one point my psychiatrist put me on 120mg, which was WAY too much -- even by drug company's standards. That was a short lived dose, but I went through withdrawal just returning to 60mg to a few weeks later. I was addicted -- I even borrowed money I couldn't repay to fill a cymbalta prescription when my health insurance declined my med coverage. That's long ago now.

Now I have been on zero for 10 days or so. I took 20mg capsules, stepped down by 20mg, added beads from 30mg capsules in-between. Now I no longer take it, but I am tired of being so sick for so long (months), as I taper down. Right now I am weeping, but I do not feel depressed or sad -- strangely, I could not cry when I took cymbalta (which is disturbing), but now I just cry with no catalyst. I imagine that my body is purging all the toxins that I built up through these tears.

However, constant crying does not help in the workplace, especially being an engineer and a teacher and a Western man with a mustache and a cowboy hat and boots who grew up tough. Huh. I don't want to hold any contempt toward my doctors, I've done a lot of reasearch myself, and I believe that even the best doctors just don't even know enough about the brain. In fact one of my clients was a top neuroscience researcher at Oxford and Cambridge -- he said that the cutting edge is only barely beginning to understand how the brain REALLY works, and that most of the previous science was ersatz.

I owe my gratitude to the University of New Mexico and the kind doctors there who DO KNOW that this happens and are trying to figure it out. They are the first doctors EVER to offer me help with this. Previously, when I tried to kick c a psychiatrist said "maybe it's just better we keep you on 60mg than risk a seizure". The doctors at UNM said that it was not a good drug for MANY people and that withdrawal is serious and that they would develop a strategy for me to help -- WOW!!! I had to "kick in the door" to see the professors there, but maybe if you shout loud enough at your local "academic" doctors somebody will take an interest...

Right now I can't feel my fingers, and I have waves of numbness that cover my face and jaw. I lose my vision for split seconds, I hear "white noise" (that brushing sound). I know this is paresthesia. I also had small seizures when I was a kid, and a few "grand mal" seizures as a teenager. Yes, the small seizures were much like c withdrawal. I now take Depakote (Valproic Acid) which has zero side effects for me and lessens the withdawal symptoms (I wasn't taking depakote when I first tried to kick cymbalta).

Most relieving are things I trust:

Electrolytes
Vitamin C
Multi Vitamins with E
Fish Oil
Brewer's Yeast (a source of good dietary B vitamins)
Fresh vegtables and fruits -- I know it's silly, but I have a Jack LaLaine juicer and it helps! Throw something fresh in there!
Music - Marin Marais Viol Suites at the moment.
A good shower
The company of my dogs -- one is licking my tears right now.

Without the B vitamins sometimes I feel like I can't do ANYTHING. It's just inertia. I don't feel depressed or tired, I just feel like I can't move or do anything. The brewer's yeast and B vitamins were recommended by a savvy nutritionist friend to combat this. It works for me. A big tablespoon of brewer's yeast is not so appetizing in most things, though. Popcorn is a notable exception.

The docs who care about this syndrome say that it takes 1.5 months or so to normalize norepinephrine levels in the brain. That's what a lot of us are waiting for as we suffer.

Today is better than yesterday, but still hard. Tomorrow I need to teach. Tonight I need to plan the lessons. I'm going to have some fresh juice and my second fish oil tablet.

I am still weeping a little, but I feel so positive. Every day is another day without Cymbalta. I'd rather take a bullet than another cymbalta. Not even another bead. I'm so resolved. I've already lost my salary and career to stress, my health insurance, the majority of my money. I'm going to regain my health and have my damn vegetables! I'm also going to enjoy every minute of air I breathe from beloved New Mexico - I feel so blessed to be back in the southwest after stress and money in LA.

At least one of my family members has lived here for over a hundred years. It's the end of a late chile season now, and family will be visiting and I will make tubs of red and green chile. My wife picks prickly pears the cactus and dyes wool with it. I fix the car, make things, spin the wool sometimes, do my engineering jobs (which are hard to do, but I work for myself now). I feel blessed, really.

The pain of this is so real and so agonizing, but I feel so strong and so blessed right now. I hope that others can as well.

Trust that simple things can heal, things we've known for thousands of years. Music, my dog, the land, faith, good food, even vitamins and aspirin. I'll still take the medicines I need, but I'm sticking to the ones that have been around for at least 20 years and mostly the ones that have been here for thousands of years.

Lorin

I hope the picture attaches. A flowering yucca against a lava flow in the Valley of Fires. I saw a rattlesnake later that stretched out along the whole width of the road without even trying...

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