Posted by LlurpsieNoodle on May 12, 2007, at 9:37:33
In reply to Re: cymbalta withdrawals, posted by sad mama on May 11, 2007, at 20:34:37
Nice to meet you, by the way. I'm sorry to hear of your daughter's struggles. I think you are doing the best job you can to get her some help through this rough patch. Don't be too hard on yourself that not everything works out the way that the anti-depressant ads on TV portray
> My daughter, only 20 at the time, went to a psychologist that I found for her. It is a hard age; still a child but handling a lot in the adult world. I went through that at that age and thought she could use some counseling. I was very surprised that he immediately had our physician prescribe Cymbalta, which I was clueless about. Trusting doctors, we complied. That was over a year ago. She quit taking it in November (noone warned us about withdrawals) and had all the symptoms everyone is talking about, but it was new to us and we didn't connect the dots. It was horrible and she went back on it. After reading up on this drug, I realize that she is on one of the higher dosages: 60mg. She now feels like she never needed a drug in the first place. I wonder how many people just need a person to purge to but end up on these drugs. That is not to say that many people don't need to be on medication, but in her case, not. She is going to go off of it this summer when she has a window of time. Now that we know what to expect and can benefit from this forum, I hope she will get through it alright. Thanks for any helpful replies.
I think that 60mg is the standard therapeutic dose for depression and other depressive disorders. I didn't get so much response at 60, and then went up to 90 and felt better. Some breakthrough depression a few months later had me up to 120.
First I tapered from 120 to 90 that took 2 weeks. then I went from 90 to 60 that took 2 weeks. (some of the withdrawal effects were happening during this time period) then I went from 60 to 30 and I was getting brain zaps every day and chilly feelings and other unpleasantries. Finally I was sick of the whole withdrawal thing and told my doc that I was ready to go off of it. I was prepared to feel bad. I had stocked up my fridge with OJ, and prepared a sick-bed where I could just be alone with myself until it passed.
I don't want to scare you with the next part. I think I picked an "okay" time to do my big withdrawal, but the fact is that I live alone.
About 3 days after going to zero I was in big trouble. I couldn't get out of bed. was so dizzy and I felt like absolute hell. I was prepared for dizzy and brain zaps and bad headache body ache etc. What I wasn't prepared for was the magnitude of self-destructive feelings. By the end of the week I had stopped eating and drinking and my therapist drove me to the hospital (where they tend to feed and water their patients). I felt really really suicidal, and it was sudden and scary.
I think your daughter is in a better place than I was at the time. For one, she has a mother who cares about her and is ready to help nurture her through that first week. Another thing is that there will probably not be as much life-stressors on her as there were on me (I am getting ready to graduate this semester).
And I think that doctors are only slowly learning about the withdrawal effects from cymbalta. There is VERY very scarce data on how this drug affects the system during withdrawal. My pdoc was surprised, and he is both active in research and clinical practice to develop and prescribe psychopharmacological interventions.
What ended up helping me was to go on a mood stabilizer (lamictal) since the doctors in the hospital were concerned about a family history of bipolar (manic-depressive) illness. It has helped greatly with my suicidal and self-destructive impulses and given me more strength to face the diffuculties of life.
You and your daughter deserve the very best during this difficult time. I hope everything goes well. My scenario was pretty extreme, but so were my psychological events at the time (writing a dissertation, living alone, delving into really icky stuff and working on it in therapy).
take good care,
-Ll
poster:LlurpsieNoodle
thread:466069
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20070419/msgs/758091.html