My Dr. (psychiatrist) says that my withdral should have been complete in about 2 weeks and tells me that my present condition and feelings are simply a return of my depression, etc. that I was being treated for with the Cymbalta. Funny, I never was this bad before Cymbalta. He dismisses the people and comments on this site as just a bunch of angry people looking for someone to blame. If I really believed him, I would probably end it all. My hope is that this will all slowly get better, and that in about 60-90 days off the med, I will be a fairly normal guy once again.
Your doctor went to the same school as my old doctor. Except for mine kept telling me that what I felt did not exist, there was no withdrawal from Cymbalta, I was the only person who felt bad coming off of it, this list goes on. Mike, I feel for you, because my old shrink did the same thing to me.
Am I angry that my old doc yanked me off cold turkey, and then told me that it was my "depression" returning? Well, yeah! And,
the way I was during withdrawal was NOTHING like the way I was before Cymbalta, which I took for situational depression and had worked through those issues, it was not rebound depression, it was bad withdrawal having been dropped from 30 mg to nothing. So you can tell your old doctor that we are a little angry, some of us lost a substantial amount of income and/or their jobs, time to live life as a human being, made our families worry about our health, felt wretched for weeks on end, the list goes on. But anger changes into healing, so that is what most of us are about here, trying to find healthy constructive ways to heal ourselves so that we can function in the world.
I am at I think 118 days off of Cymbalta. I made it 45 days of cold turkey and found another doctor who put me on Celexa and had me wean properly for about 5 weeks. Something happened to my brains about a week into the Celexa, I felt my brains "turn back on" and I knew I was going to make it. This happened as I was dropping the dose of Celexa, not increasing it.
31 days with no antidepressants, so I think now I qualify as somebody who is through this, and that nasty "return" of the old depression - that just was not true. I feel really healthy, emotionally, physically and overall happy that I am through this. No raging anger combined with crying for days. Just nice and even with highs and lows. I wish that I could have done it without resorting to taking another drug, by my life was in turmoil and I am self employed and the withdrawal rendered me pretty much to a non-functioning ball of confusion - so I commend you on getting this far, sorry that you are experiencing this. And, we need you here on this planet - it does get better so hang in there and come here and be angry, happy, sad, confused, whatever you feel, is what you feel! My husband had a hard time watching me go through this, he kept telling me to "snap out of it" so I had to keep bunches of what I went through to myself, just to keep what little sanity I had left.
I am a graphic artist, with one of those huge large format printers that has been on the blink for five days, and this is not sending me into a rage, I am patiently wasting hours of my time with diagnostics and tech chat online and ordering expensive parts that "might fix" the problem
. And happy that it is not making me freak out or cry, just a problem that will be fixed eventually. So I am with you on the computer issues. And sorry this ended up being sort of a repeat of your story, but I still am amazed that doctors who don't take this themselves can think that we are just angry people complaining, we are humans who actually took the drug and withdrew/and are withdrawing from it. Be well!
