No replies to this topic

[OffCymbalta]

I was on Cymbalta for a year and Effexor for 3 years before that. In January I started lowering my doses of Cymbalta from 60 mg to 30 mg. I took 30 mg for a week and my doctor told me I could just stop. He was wrong! The brain zaps and withdrawal symptoms are too much to just quit. I went another week on 30mg and then opened the capsule and divided it in half. They withdrawal symptoms were still a little much when I dropped from 30mg to 15mg. I took this dose for a week or so and started going every other day with 15mg. Then I split this dose again and took 7.5mg everyday for a week before skipping days. After a week, I dropped to 5mg for a week and then did the skipping days for another week. Then finally dropped to 2.5mg for a few days. These are estimated mg doses since I was opening the capsules and dividing the contents inside. After a few days of 2.5mg I stopped. The withdrawal symptoms were almost nothing after lowering my doses over the last two months. The worst days were the drops in the beginning with confusion, brain zaps, nausea, inability to sleep, inability to focus. I feel some anxiety now but my doctor has given me ativan to help with this and the sleeping.
Since Cymbalta effects the serotonin in the brain, the dreams are a bit crazy. I am hoping that as time passes the neurons in my brain will start to work properly without Cymbalta.
I have been off of Cymbalta for 11 days now and feel pretty good. No brain zaps which was the worst part of my withdrawal. Only a few occasions of dizziness. But again I lowered my dosage very slowly over a longer period of time to lessen the withdrawals. Good luck!