9 replies to this topic

[adri]

I'm going to post this in both medication's forums to see what I can find out. 

 

I've been on cymbalta for less than 6 months and it stopped working and the side effects were too much. On Monday my dr told me to stop taking the cymbalta immediately and started me on wellbutrin. Here's what my med calendar was supposed to look like...

 

Monday - last dose of cymbalta in the morning

Tuesday - 1 dose of 150mg wellbutrin in the morning

Wednesday - Morning wellbutrin

Thursday - Morning wellbutrin

Friday - 1 dose of wellbutrin in the morning and at night

 

Starting on Tuesday I was a little bit dizzy and tired but nothing unbearable

 

Wednesday the dizziness and tiredness was worse, along with what felt like random earthquakes through my whole body (I'm guessing that was like brain zaps). Felt lethargic all over. I came down with a pretty bad cold on top of all of this.

 

Yesterday (Thursday) the dizziness, nausea, and tiredness was almost unbearable. Add on to that my lips feel numb and tingly. Whole body feels flu-like. I am also experiencing a pulsing feeling through my whole body any time I move my eyes or head. I called the doctor and they said to take the wellbutrin at night as well and see how I feel, that it should get better. 

 

This morning, I had a little bit of dizziness but nothing too unbearable. I still felt the mini "tremors" but not as bad. I took my morning dose of wellbutrin about 20 minutes ago and am now experiencing the numb lips/mouth, and pulsation through my body if I move my head or eyes, dizziness is now worse.

 

To me, this sounds like the wellbutrin is the problem, not so much the quitting cymbalta cold turkey. Thoughts?

[gail]

Hi Adri, I dont know about Wellbutrin.

 

I was only 5 months on cymbalta at 30 mg, I also thought it would be a breeze to sail through withdrawal. It was not a breeze, and I went ct at 15mg.

 

My thoughts are that those side effects are 95% cymbalta . With a mix of Wellbutrin.

Others will come and put their grain of salt in this, but if you read through the forum, you will see the side effects of going ct.

[thismoment]

Hi Adri

 

You are in Cold Turkey withdrawal from the nastiest SSNRI drug on the planet. The add-on drug Bupropion (Wellbutrin) will start to work within a week and be fully effective in a month. It will help.

 

The Cymbalta will be 99% out of your body in 5 days, but the withdrawal (the so-called discontinuation syndrome) will last much longer. Typically the first 8-12 weeks are pretty rough with light at the end of the tunnel appearing after 3 months. The Bupropion should attenuate the symptoms a lot.

 

Don't be surprised if you feel like you are getting every disease known to man, because you will likely see a variety of symptoms that indicate you have everything from a brain tumour to MS to Lupus to hernia to Inner Ear to Ocular to arthritis to heart condition to GI to Celiac to Parkinson's Disease.  

 

But don't worry, it's just Eli Lilly's designer drug doing its thing to keep you sending money. But you can get through this!!

 

Give it 6 weeks.

[adri]

Hi Adri

 

You are in Cold Turkey withdrawal from the nastiest SSNRI drug on the planet. The add-on drug Bupropion (Wellbutrin) will start to work within a week and be fully effective in a month. It will help.

 

The Cymbalta will be 99% out of your body in 5 days, but the withdrawal (the so-called discontinuation syndrome) will last much longer. Typically the first 8-12 weeks are pretty rough with light at the end of the tunnel appearing after 3 months. The Bupropion should attenuate the symptoms a lot.

 

Don't be surprised if you feel like you are getting every disease known to man, because you will likely see a variety of symptoms that indicate you have everything from a brain tumour to MS to Lupus to hernia to Inner Ear to Ocular to arthritis to heart condition to GI to Celiac to Parkinson's Disease.  

 

But don't worry, it's just Eli Lilly's designer drug doing its thing to keep you sending money. But you can get through this!!

 

Give it 6 weeks.

 

THANK YOU. I was doubting my doctor when they said that the wellbutrin should start to help soon.  I'm so angry about cymbalta that I could scream…but it would probably worsen my migraine. 

[xman]

Agree! It's the SSNRI! I was so done with any brain altering medications that I did the cold turkey method, regrettably. In hind sight I should have done the bead counting method. I also remember feeling the severe muscle aches and thought I had a simultaneous cold...Those s/e lasted less than 2 weeks yet seemed like longer.

[xman]

And BTW, adri, see my post about getting Lilly to end it's production of this poison. You may not be up to it now, but you can kp. documentation for L8R...it's under Legal Action 2014.

[thismoment]

And BTW, adri, see my post about getting Lilly to end it's production of this poison. You may not be up to it now, but you can kp. documentation for L8R...it's under Legal Action 2014.

xman I'm all outta 'Like This' for the day. Good work.

[adri]

I will definitely check that out. I called my doctor again today. I'm determined to bug them until they figure something out for me. I've been CT for 4 days now, but I'm going to tell them I want to taper instead. This is ridiculous.

 

Also… I'm feeling worse in the afternoon. Anyone know a reason to this? I'm thinking maybe because I'm more active in the afternoon? I work a desk job in the morning and this morning I was laying around until time to pick up my son.

[Wagtail]

Hello Adri , I can only mimic everyone else & YES YES YES , everything you have listed are certainly withdrawal symptoms especially the numb lips , I still suffer from this s/e as well as the tingling pins & needles in my feet.
I'm hoping that fishinghat will add some advice as he is our expert on dosage in case you decide to reinstate the Cymbalta.
Just knowing what is happening should help you to cope with the nasty symptoms .
Good luck .

[fishinghat]

I totally agree with thismoment. I don't think the Wellbutrin will totally take care of the Cymbalta withdrawal but it should help. Wellbutin's mechanism is different than Cymbalta.