Posted by yxibow on August 23, 2009, at 0:15:49
In reply to Will I damage my brain if I go cold turkey?, posted by Maxime on August 19, 2009, at 17:54:00
> Hi
>
> I see my pdoc on Monday (can't wait!) and will be asking for Parnate. I am 99.9 percent certain that he will give it to me. If I go cold turkey off of 60mg of Cymbalta and 300 mg of Wellbutrin XL, is it possible to cause brain damage? I'm sorry for such a silly question, but I am just concerned.
>
> Thanks.DONT go "cold turkey" off of Cymbalta. SNRIs are known to have side effect withdrawals that would be exacerbated by dropping it.
I would go down by 20s over a few weeks, since you really want to "flush" things out of the system if you're interested in taking an MAOI.
The half life, whatever metabolites are left in your system, will be there and could cause severe problems with an MAOI, which you are already supposed to wait 14 days.
As for the Wellbutrin I can't say, but it has major drug-drug interactions with MAOIs.
You won't "damage your brain"... but as noted you may have "electrical" zaps from the receptor changes from Cymbalta, and I don't even know what would happen with Wellbutrin.
You see... psychotropics are not instant in their effects... APs, SSRIs, etc... they take a while in the "psychiatric timeline" to make their presence positive or negative.The same applies to removing them... there will still be blood levels and transmitter issues that you don't want to mix with an MAOI.... neuroplasticity takes its time
Go off reasonably and wait at least the healthy 14 day recommendation for transferring to an MAOI.
So, no "brain damage" likely. Tough problems with side effects, possible. Hypertensive crisis with going on the MAOI the day after, quite possible.
-- Jay
poster:yxibow
thread:913023
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090818/msgs/913577.html