4 replies to this topic

[ann]

Totally freaked out about this and what's going on. How long does side effects last?

It has been exactly one week today and it is not getting any better, help!!!!

[madison]

It has been exactly one week today and it is not getting any better, help!!!!

ya its been about 8 days and i'm getting better ,still having alot of burning in my shoulder and some headaches but i'm not going to give up .. and omaga 3 is good to help with this feeling

[pjfan143]

Withdrawal may easily last several weeks to a few months. It's common for symptoms to noticeably improve after about 6 weeks.
Hundreds of posts on here refer to withdrawal lasting weeks to months. You will get better often times very gradually but it would be very rare for significant improvement in symptoms after just one week or eight days. Hang in there. I have been off for 4 weeks and still am fighting headaches, nausea. anxiety, dreaming, insomnia, etc. I have more better days now; originally every day for first 2 weeks was quite unpleasant. Today I feel OK and hope tomorrow will be 2 days in a row.

Oh no! It has only been two weeks for me. I had hoped I would start to feel normal by now but I am irritable, depressed, and having headaches daily. It would be the easiest thing to go back on the Cymbalta, but I just can't give in. This is the second time I've tried to go off anti-depressants. Last time (2yrs ago) I started back after awhile because I couldn't cope. I just want to know what life can be like without these damn chemicals!

[RickWC]

I've been on 60mg of Cymbalta for 2 years (for both chronic migraine and major depression), and my doctor and I agreed that I should switch to Prozac. I was told I could stop the Cymbalta cold-turkey and start the Prozac (the FDA report I found said that Lilly does not properly inform doctors of the severity of withdrawal symptoms, nor of the proper way to taper off of the medication (opening the capsules)). I was fine for about 5 days, and then I started having severe muscle pain; first in my back, then in my calves. Next up I began having severe muscle cramps in my feet, hands and sometimes calves. I also will completely forget what I'm talking about IN THE MIDDLE OF A SENTENCE (like, everything goes blank, can't even remember the subject). It's embarrassing and this is definitely not normal for me. I've gone through medication changes before and I know that there are usually side effects, but I was willing to ride these out until the sleep issues.

I'm at the beginning of my second week of being off of Cymbalta, and the past few nights I've had horrible night terrors and terrifying hypnogogic hallucinations (half wake/half dream state where you see dreamlike (or nightmarish) things going on in your present surroundings). I wake up screaming/shrieking to the point that I have a sore throat. I have unfortunately gone through hypnogogic hallucinations before, and it was also caused by medication issues so I knew something was up and went Googling.

I found this website because the FDA included it in their report on Cymbalta and the Lilly company's deceitfulness. (It can be found here: http://www.fda.gov/d...e/UCM172866.pdf)

I learned that you are actually supposed to open up the capsules and count out the beads in order to taper off. I took a small dose this way about 9 hours ago and the muscle pain has improved a little already. I am hoping that this will also help with the sleep issues. I am going to continue tapering this way and hope that it helps with all of my side effects. I will also be reporting my withdrawal experience to FDA using their "Medwatch" website: http://www.fda.gov/S...tch/default.htm

Very interesteing reading on the Medwatch link. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Raphi]

I read all of the material on the FDA site. Thanks for the link!

What a nightmare... in consensus daytime reality as well as in the nighttime state triggered by withdrawl from this stuff.

Is there any question regarding the total sickness of the supply-driven pharmceutical industry? That the word "industry" is used without any acknowledgement of the ironic implications should be a clue.

As if we were nothing but identical components to be processed through some molecular assembly line. Hmmm... also may be why the term "human resources" replaced personnel. The latter sounds too close to admitting we working people are actually human.

As "resources," we're fair game for experimentation, just any other animal. We've been Pharmed out! Fattened and drugged for slaughter by econopaths whose only concern is the runaway engine they've stoked with obscene profits.

Guess they're hoping we've become so horribly anxious and/or depressed that we'll be grateful to become merely dopey. Notice the ugly feedback loop. Cause an economic crisis, then offer a chemical cure.

It's no surprise that Big Pharma has the greatest number of lobbyists of any organization manipulating information on Capitol Hill. They want to continue picking at our carcasses until that out of control economic engine totally flattens us.