Duloxetine taper: Am I imagining this?

I have been tapering off of the last 20mg of Duloxetine (Cymbalta) for about 6 weeks now. It is the lowest MG pill they have. I'm having to open the capsule and remove the beads inside. I'm down to 55/100 beads left. I am removing 1 bead per day.

I. feel. HORRIBLE. Body aches, nausea, swimmy head, paresthesia.  The depression is very bad, and anxiety/irritability is hard to keep under control. Am I imagining this?  It is almost the slowest I can possibly go. About every 5 beads I'm having to level off for 3 or 4 days before starting to go down again. At this rate its going to take me another 2-3 months to get off of it.  After that I have to tackle 2mg of Klonipin.

I have tried medical marijuana and am not finding that it is helpful with any symptoms. It can relax me a bit at night, but I pay the next day with increased depression and anxiety. I take hydroxyzine every once in a while. It does help with the paresthesia but its yet another sedative, so I can only take it at night after my kiddo is in bed. Any confirmation that I'm not nuts, or advice? Either appreciated. I'm feeling really beat down by feeling so, well, beat down every day. Its like walking through molasses trying to get through the day. I'm wearing a mask for everyone and its getting very hard to keep up.

Thank you!

Hey Monty,

I tried Cymbalta once and couldn’t even tolerate one day, so I admire you for sticking with it. I’ve seen quite a few people on Cymbalta (short & long term users) have withdrawal symptoms like yours.

Given that it’s in a capsule form, maybe your symptoms are more intense because the active is releasing before it reaches the gut... I know I’m not very “technical” in my explanation- benzo brain!

Might be worth checking with a compounding pharmacist to see if they can compound it for you instead.

You can have good infos about How you should taper in surviving ADs and here on BB , mind seeker poster good infos about How you should do It,( i dont know How to find ) exactly, but isaw It fixed on the main posts in one section

You must stabilize on a dose then drop 10per cent, stabilize .. thats what i saw.. IM taking an Ad and a gabamimetic ( thats my case) its not for you to base on It , IM Just telling you , while im WD From benzos, .. could not stand the sx i was having , you should adress well what Ur going to quit First, but thats its a choice only you can make in matters of How Ur feeling and How the drug affects you (good or bad), always wishing the best , and again what i told about me and the drugs i used or IM using its my case and How IM being se to deal with the benzo wd

I have been tapering off of the last 20mg of Duloxetine (Cymbalta) for about 6 weeks now. It is the lowest MG pill they have. I'm having to open the capsule and remove the beads inside. I'm down to 55/100 beads left. I am removing 1 bead per day.

 

I. feel. HORRIBLE. Body aches, nausea, swimmy head, paresthesia.  The depression is very bad, and anxiety/irritability is hard to keep under control. Am I imagining this?  It is almost the slowest I can possibly go. About every 5 beads I'm having to level off for 3 or 4 days before starting to go down again. At this rate its going to take me another 2-3 months to get off of it.  After that I have to tackle 2mg of Klonipin.

 

I have tried medical marijuana and am not finding that it is helpful with any symptoms. It can relax me a bit at night, but I pay the next day with increased depression and anxiety. I take hydroxyzine every once in a while. It does help with the paresthesia but its yet another sedative, so I can only take it at night after my kiddo is in bed. Any confirmation that I'm not nuts, or advice? Either appreciated. I'm feeling really beat down by feeling so, well, beat down every day. Its like walking through molasses trying to get through the day. I'm wearing a mask for everyone and its getting very hard to keep up.

 

Thank you!

You are tapering waaaaay too fast. Dropping beads every day is a recipe for disaster.  You need to drop by no more than 10% per month. So, if you are on 55 beads, you should drop no more than 5 or 6 beads per month.  The lower you get in dosage, the more agonzing the drops are and the longer you have to hold between drops.  I've been tapering 60 mg for over three years and am down to 6 beads.  I have to wait 6-8 weeks between each one-bead drop.

It's also very important to count every bead that you put into the capsules as the bead count varies greatly among capsules in the same prescription batch.  You need to empty several capsules, individually, and count the beads in each and then take the average of those individual counts.  That average number is the number of beads which you need to count and put back into each capsule in your prescription container.  That's the only way to get an accurate, consistent dose of the med each day.  From those freshly prepared capsules, drop no more than 10% of the current dose each month.  As you proceed, the number of beads you drop each month will be fewer until you are down to dropping 1 bead every few weeks.  All of this info is on the websites referenced below.

Cymbalta Hurts Worse is a Facebook group with good tapering techniques as well as Surviving Antidepressants.  However, both of these groups tend to be a bit militaristic so you have to be careful and not expect too much in the way of support if you veer from their rules or complain too much.  There is also a website called Healing America Now.com that is run by the Cymbalta Hurts Worse outfit.  Again, lots of great tapering information.

I am finding that tapering the Cymbalta is much harder and taking far, far longer than the benzo taper.  Be glad that you are tapering the Cymbalta first so that the benzo can help with sleep and the Cymbalta rage which is so common.