I've been taking Cymbalta 60mg for depression for about 4 years now. For the last two years, I've been pretty much depression free (and by that, I mean clinical depression. I still get sad from time to time, which is normal) and my quality of life has never been higher. I've been feeling really good the last couple of years. So, I thought if I don't have any depression there isn't a need to take anti-depression meds, right?
So once I started feeling better, I talked to my psychiatrist about this and he said "I know you've been symptom free for a while now but I want you to keep taking the medication long term. I want your brain chemistry to be altered permanently in a way so that you're never depressed again." I said "No I want to be off these meds." He replies with "Okay, we'll start tapering you off it in a couple of months." A couple of months go by and I say "Okay it's been a couple of months, let's start tapering off." He says "Hmm, let's wait a few more months." He's been saying "wait a few more months" for two years now and I'm tired of it.
So I stopped keeping my appointments with him (which, by the way, is a 160 mile drive, I usually have to miss a class or two to see him) and asked my regular doctor if he could help me taper off the Cymbalta. He's okay with that and has the nurse come back with a brown paper bag with 4 bottles of Cymbalta samples (7 30mg capsules per bottle). He told me to take the first 14 doses once a day every day, and the rest when I felt I needed them.
You might be wondering why I don't just go cold turkey. Well with Cymbalta, if you go more than 2 days without a dose, you start getting irritable and you sleep like you're in a coma (I think I slept for 18 hours once while trying to go off it). But the worst part is the brain shocks. When I first started getting them I called them pulsating headaches, but once I did some research I found out they were called brain shocks. A brain shock is...weird. It interrupts your thinking and at times can be painful and is almost always disorienting. Pretty much anything and everything sets them off: any kind of sensory input, muscle movement, and thoughts will trigger a brain shock. Eventually it gets to the point where you're laying in bed with the lights off trying to keep your mind and body as still as possible. But sometimes you get a brain shock anyway. The longest I've gone without a dose is 4 days, so I don't know if it's possible to quit cold turkey.
You might be asking why I don't taper off the meds myself. Just break the pill in half, right? It doesn't work that way. Cymbalta consists of tiny beads inside a capsule (540 beads in a 60mg dose, so 9 beads per mg). Withdrawal support websites recommend you take 5mg off the daily dose every two weeks. That just isn't practical for me. I can't be hovering over my meds each day for the first two weeks, trying to pour out 45 beads, and cursing when I pour the whole damn thing out. For one, it would look suspicious and my family would give me hell about trying to taper off. They want me to listen to the psychiatrist and stay on the meds. My dad suggested I think of it like taking a vitamin. Well fuck that, if the medicine has done its god damned job there's no reason for me to take it anymore.
And it gets expensive too. With insurance, it's $60 for a month's dose. My pharmacy lists how much money the prescription would be without insurance, and it's around $400.
So yeah, I'm pretty happy that I've gone 4 days without a brain shock so far. Also I hope this thread serves as a lesson to research whatever your doctor is prescribing you. Especially psych meds. You may end up becoming dependent on them like I did.
So once I started feeling better, I talked to my psychiatrist about this and he said "I know you've been symptom free for a while now but I want you to keep taking the medication long term. I want your brain chemistry to be altered permanently in a way so that you're never depressed again." I said "No I want to be off these meds." He replies with "Okay, we'll start tapering you off it in a couple of months." A couple of months go by and I say "Okay it's been a couple of months, let's start tapering off." He says "Hmm, let's wait a few more months." He's been saying "wait a few more months" for two years now and I'm tired of it.
So I stopped keeping my appointments with him (which, by the way, is a 160 mile drive, I usually have to miss a class or two to see him) and asked my regular doctor if he could help me taper off the Cymbalta. He's okay with that and has the nurse come back with a brown paper bag with 4 bottles of Cymbalta samples (7 30mg capsules per bottle). He told me to take the first 14 doses once a day every day, and the rest when I felt I needed them.
You might be wondering why I don't just go cold turkey. Well with Cymbalta, if you go more than 2 days without a dose, you start getting irritable and you sleep like you're in a coma (I think I slept for 18 hours once while trying to go off it). But the worst part is the brain shocks. When I first started getting them I called them pulsating headaches, but once I did some research I found out they were called brain shocks. A brain shock is...weird. It interrupts your thinking and at times can be painful and is almost always disorienting. Pretty much anything and everything sets them off: any kind of sensory input, muscle movement, and thoughts will trigger a brain shock. Eventually it gets to the point where you're laying in bed with the lights off trying to keep your mind and body as still as possible. But sometimes you get a brain shock anyway. The longest I've gone without a dose is 4 days, so I don't know if it's possible to quit cold turkey.
You might be asking why I don't taper off the meds myself. Just break the pill in half, right? It doesn't work that way. Cymbalta consists of tiny beads inside a capsule (540 beads in a 60mg dose, so 9 beads per mg). Withdrawal support websites recommend you take 5mg off the daily dose every two weeks. That just isn't practical for me. I can't be hovering over my meds each day for the first two weeks, trying to pour out 45 beads, and cursing when I pour the whole damn thing out. For one, it would look suspicious and my family would give me hell about trying to taper off. They want me to listen to the psychiatrist and stay on the meds. My dad suggested I think of it like taking a vitamin. Well fuck that, if the medicine has done its god damned job there's no reason for me to take it anymore.
And it gets expensive too. With insurance, it's $60 for a month's dose. My pharmacy lists how much money the prescription would be without insurance, and it's around $400.
So yeah, I'm pretty happy that I've gone 4 days without a brain shock so far. Also I hope this thread serves as a lesson to research whatever your doctor is prescribing you. Especially psych meds. You may end up becoming dependent on them like I did.
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