anyone with news about cymbalta & wd's

[cee666]

does getting off cymbalta cause withdrawl?
And if yes, would feeling withdrawl feelings
While on steady dosages of it mean u need to increase?

[Nowayout89]

Yes, there are definite withdraws.  The brain zaps,shocks, or what ever they are will drive you crazy.  I went from 60mg to 30mg. The zaps lasted about a week. I am going to ween off the 30mg someday if I can.

[cee666]

I am no longer on cymbalta, thank god. But when trying to quit,( cold turkey) I added tramadol w/o any medical supervision & had a seizure.
Now I'm trying to quit tramadol, hoping I can go back to wellbutran. I functioned very well on that, except for sleep problems, & headaches.
Thank u for all ur help. Anybody have experience w/wellbutran?

[Luisitosax]

Well, yes it is quite tedious, but it is possible to do. You can buy empty capsules and prepare your own doses by opening the Cymbalta capsules. I counted the little granules inside the Cymbalta capsules and calculate about how many granules (pellets) represents each miligram. For example if you have 250 granules on a 60mg Cymbalta capsules that means that about 4 granules represents 1 mg. This is just an example, I don't know how many granules you have in your capsules and I am assuming you are on 60 mg caspules. So, if you want a reduction of 5% you have to tak off 3mg from your 60mg capsules that would be more or less 12 granules. You can keep the granules that you are eliminating to make new doses. I know it is confusing but all is a matter of math.After 15 days you have to reduce another 5% but from 57mg, not from the original 60 mg. and so on. Each reduction is based on your last dose, not from the original dose.

[therese83]

could you tell me how you reduce by such small percentage?  Do you open the capsule?

That would be helpful, thanks

[Luisitosax]

Hi:
For personal experience I can tell you that Cymbalta does cause withdrawal symptoms (abstinence syndrome). I was on Cymbalta for 6 months as prescribed for my Psychiatrist, after that I decided to do some research about possible withdrawal symptoms because my bad experience with lexapro in 2005. I found that Cymbalta can cause severe symptoms from withdrawal abruptly. I started then to diminish slowly and after my 6 months of treatment I began to diminish by 5% increments every 10-15 days and after 4 months of tapering I was completly off. BUT, even at this rate of reducing I felt some symptoms (dizziness, brain zaps, fatigue, depressed mood, brain fog). I think I should have diminish even more slow (6-8 months).
Sometimes the tapering process lasts more than the same treatment period.

My 2 cents