29 replies to this topic

[cardgirl1]

So I'm on Day 10. Yesterday, day 9 went really well....thought I was improving. Then today...ugh Is anyone else having anger feelings? I'm not an angry person let alone violent-AT ALL. And I'm getting so mad and keep having these crazy rage feelings and am scared of hurting myself or others. I never have and this is a really weird feeling. I hope I'm not alone :( I hate this. I had this when I missed a dose for two days (with uncontrollable sobbing)-my crying has stopped and now I just feel like I have this huge bubble in my stomach of anger waiting to be popped. Very scary. And keep having these crazy visions pop into my head-and then I freak myself out over the visions.

Please let me know if this is happening to anyone else. I'm very nervous. If it is happening to others-tell me it passes or did???

[perpetualfatigue]

Hi I'm brand new here signed up last night. I made my first drop in dose 35days ago & still having terrible withdrawals (120mg down to 90mg).
I feel so awful I'm having major anger issues like you today I just got off the phone from a poor woman at the elctricity company I totally blasted her, lost it comletely swearing & yelling my head off & I never do that. I'm so stressed & I can't cope with even little things at the moment. Now I feel all agitated & anxious & just want to burst into tears. God I hate this drug!
I'm waiting for the phone to ring to tell me I've been charged with verbal abuse, I just feel so awful now & want to go hide in bed.

One thing I can tell you is all things pass even this. I know its not much help to either of us right now but your not alone & it won't last forever nothing does.

[MaureenV]

Hi I'm brand new here signed up last night. I made my first drop in dose 35days ago & still having terrible withdrawals (120mg down to 90mg).
I feel so awful I'm having major anger issues like you today I just got off the phone from a poor woman at the elctricity company I totally blasted her, lost it comletely swearing & yelling my head off & I never do that. I'm so stressed & I can't cope with even little things at the moment. Now I feel all agitated & anxious & just want to burst into tears. God I hate this drug!
I'm waiting for the phone to ring to tell me I've been charged with verbal abuse, I just feel so awful now & want to go hide in bed.

One thing I can tell you is all things pass even this. I know its not much help to either of us right now but your not alone & it won't last forever nothing does.

This all sounds so familiar. I'd say welcome, except none of us wants to be here, so I'll just say hang in there, at least here everyone can understand where you're coming from. I've shouted at family members telling them could they please keep their voices down (barely restrained myself from saying shut the f. up - not my style usually) and got puzzled looks because all they'd been doing was talking in normal voices.

Are you seriously at any risk of being charged with verbal abuse?


I can only suggest you put something in writing to her if you feel up to it which may stand in your favour if it happens.

I know you don't, but I'll just get in and say there's no reason you should be o.k. by now after a 30mg drop. Everyone's different, and I'm someone who's even having trouble getting off 30mg. After six weeks I'm only down to 7.5, which probably sounds crazy when you're on 90, (that I even need it, I mean) but when I tried to stop taking 10mg some of the effects came back with a vengeance - esp the brain zaps.

yours in frustration,


Maureen.

[chrisann03]

i am a very passive person, never ever angry. I get SO angry right now. It is beyond crazy. I get angry when someone is stupid, i get angry when someone looks funny. It's just insane. And I get angry because I'm angry.

[nursedeborah]

cardgirl,
It's just the withdrawls, did you go to the site and look at the symptoms!!! http://prozactruth.com/cymbalta.htm
Do that right now, don't put it off! It really will all make so much sense to you, and you also won't feel so crazy
when you see it right in front of you.

No one here was hacing electrical shocks in their teeth, but guess what? I found it on the list of withdrawl symptoms.
It will really blow you away when you see what all of them are, over 100 of them. It affects every organ, system in
your body, and does a number on your mental stuff. People can fet paranoid, hallucinate(sp) it just is something
I think anyone that is going through this would want to know all of them, I did. Maybe it's just because I am a nurse,
but then again when I find out I have something I do want to know everything about it.

Hang in there you are fine, and will get past where you are, it just sucks right now. Breathe, and be kind to yourself for
doing such a hard thing!

Debbie

[nursedeborah]

perpfatigue,
It's not you, it's the DRUG, and withdrawls. Here is the site http://prozactruth.com/cymbalta.htm
Thia does so many things to all of us either on , coming off it, and now I have heard that some
have long term side effects. I am just thinking that'a rare, I can't let my thinking even go there.

We willl all make it off this noxious drug, and are all here to support eachother. If you need someone to
talk to I am here for you.

Debbie

[chrisann03]

perpfatigue,
It's not you, it's the DRUG, and withdrawls. Here is the site http://prozactruth.com/cymbalta.htm
Thia does so many things to all of us either on , coming off it, and now I have heard that some
have long term side effects. I am just thinking that'a rare, I can't let my thinking even go there.

We willl all make it off this noxious drug, and are all here to support eachother. If you need someone to
talk to I am here for you.

Debbie

Yes! I love the Prozac truth site! I printed them all out and highlighted all my symptoms to take to my doctor since she thinks I'm making them up!!!

[Meanna]

Is this prozac site from the FDA? Where are the findings substantiated from - were they real trial studies? It makes me so angry I did not receive any of this information before they handed over the script for the drug. My lips have been dry and chipped for 3 months now, and I've been off completely for a week and it's still there. So many of those side effects, especially the dreams, are spot on. I'm so untrusting of doctors now. I hope they sleep well at night knowing they pass this out like candy without informing anybody of these side effects while on, and while getting off, of this nasty, horrid drug. Who knows how many people have actually experienced the suicide part and are no longer with "us" because of this mind altering pill from hell.

[MaureenV]

Hi Meanna,


Sadly, many doctors are uninformed due to the drug companies' profit making drive. The drug companies are obliged to give us (in AUst) information regarding side effects etc, but are NOT obliged to divulge the withdrawal symptoms.


There's a very wide range of anti depressants out there, and many non-specialist doctors will not have many people on each one, and as some people can get off Cymbalta without too many problems, you may be the first case your doctor has had of severe withdrawals.


I'm not sure where the prozac truth one came from, but the other one from barney is from the FDA.


If your doctor is not prepared to work WITH you, you need another doctor,

kind regards, Maureen.

[shaun]

I too am having anger issues. I am afraid that I have taken them out on my kids; just yelling but that is bad in my book. I do hope you feel better soon. It is nice to know that you are not alone.

[barney59]

Meanna & Chrisann3

If you want to give your doctor a document that validates what you are going thru, please print the FDA REPORT that I posted. Here it is again. This, out of others I gave my doc was the one he really took serious and viewed as legit. Not saying others are not legit, just the FDA was one he would listen to.
B


http://www.fda.gov/d... ... 172866.pdf

[chrisann03]

I just gave a copy of that to my doc yesterday. she is going to look over it this weekend. She told me to start my wellbutrin last night because she was afraid about my anger feelings and today i feel like a different person so hopefully this will help with that problem. thanks again!

[Peachyyy1]

OMG....I have also been having so many things like ya all talk about here.
I was given Cymbalta for fibromyalgia a few years ago & @ first I did think it
was helping. My worse side effect that I have noticed the most..was of course
weight gain...but very dry mouth & intensive sweating...get so dang hot I can
barely stand it. I am a 68 yof...thought I was past all that as far as menopause
then I started reading more about the Cymbalta.
I was only on 30mgs twice a day....so a couple weeks ago I cut down on one
of them w/out any relief what so ever.
My Dr told me today to only take one every other day now...& I started on
Lexapro...only 5mg to start with.
I don't do well w/meds anyway & I do have many major health problems.
My gosh...the anger is terrible & have lately said things I should never have said
too the ones I used to love more than life itself.

I had to have some intensive surgery in 2007..including some brain surgery & I
have been blaiming EVERYTHING on that & allergys...

I am so sorry we have had so much to go thru w/something that was suppose to
be so helpful.
The tension in my neck & shoulders is out of site...I hope this all passes soon..
I don't have many friends left anymore....cause I chased them all away.

Everything I used to enJOY as a challenge agitates me...my nerves R very fragile!!

Sure glad I found this place....don't know how I did...but God does.
Thanks for listening to me....I now have some where to get the info & help I have
needed....THANKS

[nursedeborah]

Peachyyy1,
Welcome, your not alone at all in anything that your going through right now.
I do want to say that the way the doc has you decreasing you Cymbalta is not
the way to do so, well from all I have learned here from those who have done
it, and due to the brain being addicted to it.

What you will find here like so many of us is a way to slowly taper this drug
very slowly so you get the least amount of withdrawl symptoms that you
can tolerate. The skipping doses just makes it way to hard, and painful.

This drug has a very short half life only 4 hours, so when you wait a day to
take it, by then your already in withdrawls, then you take it, and you get
relief, only to repeat the cycle again. It just doesn't work that way at all.

The doctors have no idea about the side effects or the withdrawls, get
a copy of the FDA report to take to him, it lists all the withdrawl symptoms.

Read several post on how other have come off this drug, we open the caps
and dump out a portion even. I have learned so much here, and I know you
will too.

Debbie

[Peachyyy1]

Thanks so much for your reply....this is very scary but I suppose I have been through
some things like this before and never knew why.

Anyway....I am hoping the worst of mine is over as I had already lowered the dose to one tab a day
(30mg) for the past few weeks. Yesterday (Fri 10/9) I started on 5mg of the lexapro.
Gezzzzzzzzzz maybe I don't even want to go on that now after all this mess.
After all of this....what would help me to tell my Dr....she might already know some of this...not sure.
I know when I tell her about side effects that things like this have....she said it doesn't work on everyone
the same way. anyway....she is going out of town for a few days next week so I have no way of
getting hold of her until she gets back.
Maybe I will just start cutting back on that tomorrow by taking part of it out of the capsule????

This is all very confusing, I never heard of all this before....never.

[MaureenV]

Hi Peachyyy1,


Do you mean you've never heard of the withdrawal effects being so bad or taking so long to resolve?


Or do you mean you've never heard of taking some of the little balls out?



If it's the second, neither had I until I read a post of Houdi's which changed everything for me, and allowed me to think about not taking 30mg every second day in an attempt to wean off, and change to taking 15mg EVERY day instead.

I changed from lexapro to Cymbalta and didn't notice a lot of difference except I had less severe nightmares on Cymbalta and also lost some weight, HOWEVER, I had put on about 10kg with Lexapro, so it's all relative.


Maureen.

[Peachyyy1]

Thanks Maureen...I never heard of any of it before.

I started gaining weight w/the Cymbalta as soon as I started on it I was hoping the Lexapro
would be different....maybe I don't want to go on that stuff either!!??

I am just really concerned about what I am reading here.
I have emptied half of my pills now....so how long until I can go off them after that???
I don't want to get another refill....

[MaureenV]

Hi,


Re the Lexapro - don't take my experience as an example of what will happen. My history of Lexapro was that I went on to it late last year, being in such a state that eating was actually something I had to force myself to do; my work is also fairly physical for the last 10 weeks of the year, so I lose weight every year from now on (and obviously put it back on somewhere along the line, or by now I would have disappeared). But at 52kg I was on the thin side (a BMI of 20) so once I started feeling better on Lexapro (which was very quick - I could feel the anti-anxiety aspect working within hours - a certain placidity which had been missing for a year or so) I also started to eat more, and eat more, and exercise less, and eat more .... (you get the picture?) until I was 65kg.

The strange thing I personally found with Lexapro was that I WAS actually hungry - not just a case of comfort eating etc. I had several days where I accidentally ate lunch twice (because I eat lunch anywhere between 11 - 3). Just eating a normal meal never left me with that full feeling, I could easily have eaten a repeat an hour later. If I tried to ignore the feeling, knowing full well I didn't need the food, I would actually start to get that sick,floaty feeling you can get when you haven't eaten for a while. I actually tried to diet a few times and failed for that reason. I'm someone who can quite easily skip breakfast and not notice, but on Lexapro my eyes would pop open and I'd think 'food!'.

So I do know that it was hand-to-mouth that caused the weight gain and not some metabolism aspect of the drug, but I also know that it definitely altered my hunger response.

I felt more alert immediately going on to Cymbalta, and lost a few kilos without trying, and how now decided to actually try to diet, now that the worst of coming off Cymbalta is behind me, and have been quite successful. When I put my mind to it, I can usually diet fairly well. Feeling hungry doesn't bother me - it gives me the knowledge that I'm then running on fat! I just couldn't handle the sick, floaty feeling I'd get with Lexapro if I tried to cut down, or skip breakfast.


In regard to not getting another refill - couldn't agree more with you - don't want to give Eli Lilly any encouragement!!

How many 30mg caps do you have left? If you want to make use of all that you have, you can divide up the contents by buying empty gelatine capsules (from a large chemist) and therefore making what you have last longer.

Please, please, please don't be in any rush - it's so depressing to think that you're making progress only to find you have to increase the dose again due to unbearable side effects. You ask how long? It's like asking how long's a piece of string. For me, I had to stay on each level for about a week before dropping further, and I've gone REALLY slowly: I went 15mg, 20mg, 15mg, 12.5mg, 10mg, 7.5mg and now 5mg. I tried to drop completely from 10, but was unsuccessful. I'm taking my last 'home prepared' 5mg tomorrow so will decide late tomorrow what to do after that.

I'm sooooooo impatient to be rid of taking this rubbish, but like Debbie too, have learnt the hard way that it just doesn't pay.


You may, of course, be able to taper faster given your Lexapro. I went from 10mg Lexapro to 30mg Cymbalta with absolutely no negative side effects (and in fact lost a bit of weight, felt more alert, and the nightmares were less).

How much do you think you're removing from the 30mg capsules?


take care and keep in touch, Maureen.

[ChrisB123]

Hi , 

     I just signed up this evening as I am feeling exactly the same so searched the withdrawals of Duloxetine . 

 

     I'm into my second week of withdrawal from cymbalta/duloxetine and I'm feeling exactly the same . angry , no patience , flippant , agressive etc . I'm getting the 'brain shocks and tremors and now this ......

 

     I've looked at a lot of sites and find that nearly everyone gets all these withdrawal symptoms , which I take 'comfort from' to find the only words I can use to give myself hope that its only withdrawal not just me that's feeling like this . 

I forgot to mention the swings of insomnia and tiredness . I'm seeing my psychotherapist and Doctor Wed and will be creating hell about the way I am feeling .

 

     So your not alone in feeling this way . hope this gives you strength . 

 

. 

[Raven72]

Hello everyone,

 

Being fairly new here myself, it seems that everything I am experiencing is what most everyone here is or has experienced.  I am very thankful that my husband found this site for us/me.

 

*anger/argumentative*

The anger and wanting to argue just for the sake of it are the worst for me. My anger and frustration and wanting to argue bothers me so bad that I wish I had a whole I could hide in sometimes.

 

*crying/sadness*

All I want to do is cry it seems.  If the slightest thing agitates or upsets me then all I want to do is cry. From a woman's perspective that is great, because crying is just a part of our nature. While men cry, it's not as much of their nature as it is ours, so it's hard for them to be around, much less understand you if you even try to talk while you are crying. 

 

I suffer from so much more but I am not here to write a book. I hope we can all help each other on the road to recovery.

 

Blessed Be,

Raven

[Dudlet]

I used to take 40mg day. I stepped down to 20mg a day for a week before going off completely. have been complexly off for 7 weeks now. I thought I was done with anger feelings after having them the first few weeks, but they're back. I don't think it's just "life" because they seem to come out of nowhere. I go from zero to full of rage in one second flat. The littlest things set me off.

Has anybody experienced these anger/range feelings this far out? How long have people gone before these feelings finally went away?

[FiveNotions]

Hi Dudlet, welcome to the forum !

 

The huge emotional swings, without warning, hit me hard ... I'm not sure quite when, but 7 weeks out most definitely ... (I quit cold turkey, so everything hit, and hit hard, at one point or another) ... it was blind rage with me ... throwing things, pounding pillows, even took a couple of swings at my dearest friend who was trying his best to help me through the withdrawal. (Blessedly, he's a tough little corker, and I neither hurt him physically or scared him off generally) ... I'd be crying hysterically one instant, wild with rage the next ... and zero idea when it would hit, or how long it would last ...

 

So yes, you're not alone in this at all, and it's just a "part of the process" ...and it gradually fades away ... I think these emotional "binges" in me had disappeared by about month 4-6 ...

 

Just hang in there ... you came down / off a bit fast, although you were on a relatively low(er) dose ... it takes time for our brains / bodies to gradually return to functioning without the drug ...

 

Please keep posting to let us know how you're doing !

 

Are you taking any supplements to help? (Omega 3 is really important, as well as a multi vitamin, B complex, and chelated magnesium (just be careful with that, as a tiny percentage of folks, like TryingInFlorida here, discover that mag. causes them anxiety) ...

[fishinghat]

With FN on this one/ Wild mood swings including rage. They will fade with time.

[Dudlet]

Thanks for the reply, FiveNotions. I had no idea the supplements you recommended are so important, but I am going to start taking them now! I'll keep you posted.

[Carleeta]

Dud, Welcome. Yes try the supplements.  Don't feel you are alone in these symptoms.  Please keep us posted

[Dudlet]

Had a really ugly day today. I got so worked up, I was in an absolute rage - and where people could hear and see me freaking out. My wife was mortified and I don't blame her.

I am scared that I might do something really stupid next like fly off the handle at work and get fired. I really don't want to go back on another drug because I feel like a failure for "needing" yet another antidepressant (have been on them for years). Not to mention, I'm done with all of the side effects they cause. That said, maybe it's worth going on somethng else, even if it's just short term. What do you think? If I did, what drugs do you suggest I consider?

[gail]

Hi Dudley,

We usually suggest long half life ones, Prozac or Zoloft. Easier to get off and nothing like Cymbalta. Many have used it here to make the cymbalta withdrawal easier. Some stay on it and others get off.

A little help would not hurt you.

We do not like to be on antidepressants, but it is necessary at times!

[fishinghat]

Confirmation of what Gail said. You need to take care of yourself.

[Carleeta]

I agree also with gail and fishinghat.... Don't feel like a failure.  Ease yourself, and your concerns with doing what you feel is best for you at the moment.  Taking another medication (as mentioned above) will help you get through the ugliness of Cymbalta and be much easier for you to reduce off of.

[Dudlet]

Thanks for the feedback, you guys. I felt much better today. I'm going to try the supplements first, but not hesitate to go on something like Prozac or Zoloft if I still can't manage.