Cymbalta = Poison

I've decided to post my story here as a warning to anyone who may chance upon it.  The benefits of taking Cymbalta DO NOT outweigh the costs.  Please read on.

I have been taking medication for anxiety for 5 or 6 years.  Prior to that I was prescribed several antidepressants by various doctors, but done of them really helped me feel better.  When my doctor finally figured out I had generalized anxiety disorder, not depression, and started me on Cymbalta I felt so much better and felt like I finally had an accurate diagnosis and a remedy that worked.  I felt like a normal person!   However, I didn't want to stay on medication forever.  I recently decided that it was time to at least try resuming life without the assistance of anxiety meds, with the knowledge that if it didn't work well I could always get back on them. 

Before beginning the process of getting off this medication, I visited my doctor and have been following the instructions he outlined.  The first 2 weeks I was on a half dose.  This felt exactly the same for me as the full dose (60 mg).  I began thinking that this transition wasn't going to be as difficult as I had anticipated.  Beginning on the 15th day, however, I began taking a half dose every other day.  This proved to be severely detrimental to my well-being.  I think having some in my system one day and then a day with absolutely none is too hard on my body and my mind.  Not only was my body revolting in every imaginable way, I felt like jumping in front of a semi because my mind and emotions were unstable.

I have had terrible dizziness, nausea, vomiting, stomach cramping, bloating, back pain, night sweats, headaches, crying all the time, getting mad really easily, and overall irritability.  I was completely stuck in bed because I was so sick.  At this point (while lying in bed), I decided to look online to see if others had similar experiences.  I found this hub, which showed hundreds of people describing their experiences just as I was then living them.  It gave me so much comfort just to know that I wasn't alone!  Several people posted that they have gotten off street drugs and Cymbalta and that it was harder for them to get off Cymbalta.  I honestly felt like I was going insane and finding other people going through similar experiences - and some had come back and posted after getting better - helped me so much to have the courage to endure.  Some people posted different things they tried to help them get off the drug, which helped me come up with a better plan for gradually reducing my dose.

I don't feel good about staying on a drug that has me so terribly addicted.  (One missed dose and I am a wreck for almost 2 days.) I'm sure the benefits do not outweigh the negative consequences for me any more and REALLY wish I had been warned about the withdrawal period when I first went on this drug 5 or so years ago.  I also really wish the doctor I went to for advice getting off of it had known (or had told me) that it's not as easy as the manufacturer (Lilly) makes it sound.  He did say it may take longer than the month plan he outlined, but he didn't elaborate in any way as to why it might or how difficult I should expect it to be.  I should also note that I had read the entire information pamphlet that comes with Cymbalta prescriptions on three different occasions.  (Not the few-page document that comes from the pharmacy, but the actual manufacturer's pamphlet that is written in 6 pt font!)  Even that document only says that one shouldn't stop taking it cold turkey and one should consult a doctor prior to stopping it.  Of course, how a drug affects one's body varies from person to person and I know that the longer a person is on Cymbalta, the harder it is to stop taking it, but considering the hundreds of posts on the ONE hub I listed above, it seems like there should be enough evidence that if the manufacturer cared, it would do a better job of warning people.  I also believe that doctors should learn more so they don't carelessly prescribe this drug without warning their patients about its addictive qualities.

After reading the hub I linked above, I came up with a plan for reducing my medicine more gradually.  I ended up pouring out the beads from the 60 mg capsules and counting out individual beads and putting them in empty capsules.  In the 60 mg capsules, there are about 200 beads per capsule.  I decreased my dose by 1 mg per day (3 beads) for 3 weeks, then I had to slow down because even that rate was too fast and I wasn't able to accomplish normal daily activities.  I then began taking the same dose for 3-4 days before going down 1 mg.  After 2 more weeks I began reducing my dose by 1 more bead (approx. .3 mg) each day and continued like that until I ran out of beads.  At times I had to stop reducing and take the same dose for a few days until my body got used to it because even this amazingly slow rate of reduction was very difficult.  After a few days I would assume the previous rate of 1 less bead each day. 

I have also been using essential oils.  I've been using Pine Needle oil (2 drops on the soles of my feet every 2 hours or as often as I remember) and Ginger oil (same amount and frequency).  They are said to help the body eliminate toxins and help the brain learn to re-fire synapses or something like that on its own.  It does seem like when I use these I do better than when I go a while without them.

My last pill!  1 bead!

It has been three months since I began going off Cymbalta.  I took my last "bead" (about 1/3 of 1 milligram) 4 days ago.  My vertigo (or brain shivers, or brain shocks, as this withdrawal symptom has been called) has increased dramatically just since then.  I can't believe that 1 tiny bead can make such a difference.

There have been many times I've been tempted to go back on a steady, more normal dose to ease the pains of withdrawal and to curb the feelings of anxiety that have reappeared, but I was resolute!  I feel strongly that this "medicine" is more of a poison to people's bodies and the advantages gained over other, easier-to-get-off-of medications are far outweighed by its addictive properties.

The pharmaceutical industry has labeled the withdrawal symptoms "SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome", which apparently assuages people's fears that the medication has addictive properties.  Sneaky, Eli Lilly!

In 1996, Eli Lilly and Company sponsored a symposium to address the increasing number of reports of patients who had difficult symptoms after going off their antidepressants:  By then it had become clear that drug-company estimates that at most a few percent of those who took antidepressants would have a hard time getting off were far too low. Jerrold Rosenbaum and Maurizio Fava, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, found that among people getting off antidepressants, anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent (depending on the drug) suffered what was being called antidepressant withdrawal (but which, after the symposium, was renamed “discontinuation syndrome”).^[11

The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to track withdrawal syndrome, and notes:  SSRIs are an example of how a conceptual confusion over terminology can affect proper reporting, interpretation and communication of adverse drug reactions related to dependence. To avoid the association with dependence, an increasing number of researchers have used a different term, discontinuation syndrome, instead of withdrawal syndrome. The number of hits for discontinuation syndrome in searches of the international medical literature began to increase, relative to the occurrence of withdrawal syndrome, in 1997 after [the Eli Lilly] symposium on antidepressant discontinuation syndrome held in 1996. In fact, dependence syndrome has been reported to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre for all SSRIs through the same postmarketing surveillance systems, although there are significantly fewer reports of dependence syndrome than of withdrawal syndrome.

I don't know about you, but 20-80% of people using the drug going through withdrawals seems pretty significant to me.

I can't help but wonder now if maybe the reason my last baby was so difficult for the first year of his life could have been because he was going through withdrawals too.  Poor little guy! :'(  When I got pregnant, my OB said that while pregnant is not the time to go off Cymbalta, but didn't explain how hard it would be either.

Aside from the vertigo which continues, I now feel pretty much the same way I did before I took Cymbalta to begin with.  I feel a tremendous amount of stress inside most of the time.  This constant feeling of stress seems to make me lose my temper faster and get irritated at everything and everybody.  I don't know how I'm going to learn to deal with feeling this way, but I know I will never take Cymbalta poison again.

If you're interested in what wikipedia has to say about Cymbalta, read here. 

It has been three months since I began going off Cymbalta.  I took my last "bead" (about 1/3 of 1 milligram) 4 days ago.  My vertigo has increased dramatically just since then.  I can't believe that 1 tiny bead can make such a difference.

There have been many times I've been tempted to go back on a steady, more normal dose to ease the pains of withdrawal and to curb the feelings of anxiety that have reappeared, but I was resolute!  I feel strongly that this "medicine" is more of a poison to people's bodies and the advantages gained over other, easier-to-get-off-of medications are far outweighed by its addictive properties.

I can't help but wonder now if maybe the reason my last baby was so difficult for the first year of his life could have been because he was going through withdrawals too.  Poor little guy! :'(  When I got pregnant, my OB said that while pregnant is not the time to go off cymbalta, but didn't explain how hard it would be either.

Aside from the vertigo which continues, I now feel pretty much the same way I did before I took cymbalta to begin with.  I feel a tremendous amount of stress inside most of the time.  This constant feeling of stress seems to make me lose my temper faster and get irritated at everything and everybody.  I don't know how I'm going to learn to deal with feeling this way, but I know I will never take cymbalta poison again.