What you're experiencing has been made difficult by the way your doctor is doing this, although this is a common way of doing it. Essentially, you are on two drugs at once now, and could be suffering withdrawal from the Zoloft, side effects from the Cymbalta, or a combination both. If you had tapered off the Zoloft as slowly as you needed to and not started the new drug until having successfully completed that, you'd know if this was a withdrawal symptom and perhaps you needed to slow down the taper off of Zoloft. By being on both drugs, you have no idea what's causing what, and neither does anyone else. As I say, this is a common way of doing this, many psychiatrists believe this reduces withdrawal problems and many researchers believe it doesn't. The minimum taper I've ever seen recommended is 6 weeks, and your doc is doing this is a matter of days. Because you're dose of Cymbalta is so low it's more likely withdrawal from the Zoloft, but again, nobody can know the way you're doing it. Your choices are to follow your doc and hope this works out, because most people who take Zoloft do go through some sort of withdrawal and it generally passes in a couple of weeks. Some have a harder time, some have a really easy time. People are different. You are also switching to a different class of med that targets a second neurotransmitter, norepinephrine. Generally, this is stimulating, and while this can be very effective for depression and sometimes for pain control, not so much for anxiety if that's your main problem (often anxiety is caused by depression). You know better what your issues are, we can only comment on what you've posted, but these are the possible outcomes of doing this the way your doc is doing it. I'd also recommend that you do this with a psychiatrist rather than a general doc because they just do it a lot more and get a lot more familiar with the meds and how to do this, but that's no guarantee a psychiatrist will be better at it than a general doc who has put more time into studying drugs than a psychiatrist who hasn't bothered. specialmom asks a great question about why you're doing this -- has the Zoloft stopped working?
Why are you having to go off of Zoloft and onto a different medication? Our body adjusts to these medications. Your doctor was trying to prevent issues by titrating the Zoloft down. Did he also raise the Cymbalta dose slowly? I'm not the hugest fan of Cymbalta but some like it. Your doctor may be on vacation but he DOES have someone covering for them. This is the way doctor's work. They have another doctor that takes their calls or emergencies. So, call your doctor's office and have whomever is covering for them get in touch with you. Ask if you should back off the Cymbalta and titrate back up on the Zoloft. Take it all a bit more slowly so to speak. Let us know what they say.