Holy Crap Batman

Effexor, Cymbalta. If your doctor ever mentions those words to you, run, run fast and very far away. Well, that's probably irresponsible of me. I'll just relate what happened (is happening) to me.

As I've mentioned before, I've had this fibromyalgia thing for quite a number of years. The medical community does not know how to treat this condition. So, they try different things. With my participation, of course. For several years, I was taking effexor with no apparent ill effects. Then my doctor thought cymbalta would work better to relieve some of the physical pain. Switching from effexor to cymbalta was fine. I was also taking wellbutrin. It's kind of like a cocktail, you see. A sprinkle of this, a dab of that. Then...my insurance company decided they didn't want to pay for two antidepressants, even though it's very common for people to be on more than one. So, with my doctor's advice, I tapered down on the cymbalta over several weeks. (Actually, he was going to have me do it over one week but it was obvious that that was too fast. When I started having withdrawal symptoms, his response was for me to keep taking it! So I could keep taking this drug forever because not taking it makes me sick. Hmmm)

The first 4 weeks after I stopped taking the cymbalta were pure hell. Headache, nausea, cold sweat. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed. I went on the internet searching for 'cymbalta withdrawal'. I found several sites where people discussed different methods for getting off. One person mentioned benadryl. I first bought a box of about 24. The next time, I bought the mega savings 200 bottle and it's time to stock up again.

I took the last dose of cymbalta on March 4th. If I don't take the benadryl, I am very depressed. Apparently, the withdrawal can last for months. So, I'm assuming that it can only get better from here. Let's hope so.