I started on Cymbalta for anxiety and depression about 2 years ago. After having been on this antidepressant for a while it was decided by myself and my doctor that it was time to try living life again without an antidepressant.
Simple right? Not so. I was told by my psychiatrist that I would need to ween off of Cymbalta “just to be on the safe side”. I was advised to first decrease my dose by half. I went from taking 40mg of Cymbalta daily down to 20mg per day. To my surprise, even this initial decrease in the dose left my body with pretty severe withdrawal symptoms.
What The Hell Are Brain Zaps?
If you have never heard of something called brain zaps…you are lucky. This phenomena dubbed “brain zaps” by it’s unfortunate sufferers it’s exactly what it sounds like. The sensation of an electrical zap in your brain which occurs frequently throughout the day. Imagine feeling like you have an electrical current that periodically zaps your brain throughout the day. It’s enough to make you feel like you are going insane.
Along with the brain zaps one can expect to have a wide range of Cymbalta withdrawal symptoms. These include flu like symptoms with body aches, chills, nausea and often times accompanied by diarrhea…fun. Canker sores, swelling of limbs, fluid retention and tingling of extremities are some of the other Cymbalta withdrawal symptoms that people seem to get. On top of your body feeling sick your emotions are way out of whack. Sufferers have described having anxiety, severe enough that they were unable to leave the house, thoughts of suicide, rage, uncontrollable crying and severe sadness.
When you combine the psychological symptoms with the physical symptoms of the Cymbalta withdrawal you can see that this is some serious withdrawal. Obviously the brain chemistry is altered anytime you start taking an antidepressant but Cymbalta seems to be worse than others to come off of. Did I happen to mention that my Cymbalta withdrawal symptoms lasted for 19 days?
Here Is The Common Theme
While experiencing the Cymbalta withdrawal symptoms I decided to write about it on my personal site. I wrote a post titled Cymbalta Withdrawal Symptoms Suck. I expressed what I was going through and the shock of it all considering I was not warned by my doctor to expect anything resembling what I was going through.
To my shock I started receiving comment after comment from people just like myself who were either advised to stop taking the Cymbalta cold turkey or to ween off of the drug far too quickly, as I had. It has become pretty clear to me just by the comments I am receiving, that not enough doctors are aware of the severe Cymbalta withdrawal symptoms.
Even people who called their doctors complaining of these severe withdrawal symptoms are being told that “it is not typical of this drug” or “they shouldn’t be experiencing the withdrawal symptoms since they weened off”.
I realize that ultimately it is the patient’s responsibility to find out all of the possible side effects that may occur before they start taking a medication. But what I found when I started to experience these withdrawal symptoms is that not even on the Cymbalta website where these withdrawal symptoms listed. If the information is not available the patient’s cannot make an informed decision about beginning this type of drug.
After a long 19 days of me suffering through and complaining about Cymbalta withdrawal symptoms and my family being ready to throw me off the roof, I finally got back to feeling myself. A couple of days went by and I realized “hey, I haven’t felt any electrical zaps in my brain and I have chewed anyone’s head off today..today is a good day”.
My advise to anyone being offered Cymbalta for either depression or Cymbalta for nerve pain is to really research all of your options. Cymbalta should be your very, very last resort. The end does not justify the means.
