I'm new to this site, but my view of the world is improved by its existence. This is great, even though we're all brought together here because of pain and/or suffering. Feeling not alone is a huge, huge, huge help.
So I'm going to track my weaning off of medication through posts on this site. I'm 25 years old, and I've been on Cymbalta for anxiety and depression for 6 years. I also have Painful Bladder Syndrome, and supposedly, Cymbalta not only balances Seratonin levels for anxiety and depression, but it also blocks Norepinephrine (Nora Ephron?) signals in order to curb chronic pain. Over 6 years, I worked my way up to 60mgs from year 2 to about year 5. Then I went up to 80mg.
About a month ago, I decided to go down to 60 and start my weaning process. I did not give myself enough credit or emotional/physiological flexibility at first. I had flat affect and then would be crying, I was obsessive and depressed and exhausted and was angry at myself for this. I don't know if this is my brain returning to its pure state or a side effect or what, which is part of the reason I want to get off. I had some other shitty stuff (first world problems-relative) happening and didn't realize my medicine decrease was exacerbating my struggle.
I've been more creative, which is exciting for me and my work. My sleep patterns have been irregular. Some days I've been so exhausted I could nap for hours and still be tired enough to fall asleep pretty early at night. Other nights, like last night, my thoughts were racing so fast that so was my heart, and I couldn't fall asleep until very late. this reminds me of my pure brain. . And this is going down 20mg, I didn't go off entirely. I just went from 80 to 60. It's powerful stuff. I get higher quicker and with less, and I get drunker quicker with less the one time I had a drink this month since I decreased. I'm not a good example for the alcohol, though, because I'm a huge wuss with that. Part of what interested me in decreasing my dosage was to see if my difficulty in achieving orgasm would be effected.
I know these meds are unnatural and bizarre, and going on them and getting off them is so, so very scary. However, it's really helped me function and has given me a stable emotional base to work off of in these formative years. This experience is bittersweet, and I'm scared that I'm going to go off the meds and not be comfortable in my pure brain and need to go back on.
I hope this is of use to anyone.
