I want to document the struggles I am going through right now, so that hopefully in the future I can look back and see what I have gone through and come out stronger on the other side. I have made the decision to come off my Cymbalta. I am really upset about the decision to start taking it. I am upset that I didn’t research it and just took the word of my doctor. Maybe I was letting the pain in my body take over and I didn’t think everything through. Whatever the reason, I started taking that poison and now I want to and need to be done.
I was prescribed Cymbalta for my fibromyalgia pain. I was so sick of being in pain. All the time. Sometimes debilitating pain. I would not want to get out of bed. I had to talk myself into getting up from laying down or sitting down. Luckily it was not every day that was debilitating, but it was there… and I was sick of dealing with it. It is exhausting. I had gone to doctors, but never really felt listened to. So, I finally went to a doctor over in Sheridan who listened to me. She believed that I was in pain and didn’t just automatically tell me to lose weight. So, I took the med blindly. It worked for a while. I was so hopeful and excited. There were finally nights where I didn’t have to take 4 ibuprofen to sleep.
But then the pain came back. It was so disappointing. But I kept taking the meds, thinking the pain would go away again. That maybe I would feel as good as I did before. But no. The pain stayed. Constant every day pain, with days of extreme pain sprinkled in. And it wasn’t just that. I was experiencing side effects that I chose to ignore before. I was hot. All the damn time. I would sweat just standing or sitting somewhere. It was so uncomfortable. I felt flat, exhausted, lethargic, blah. I would get home from work and be so exhausted I couldn’t or didn’t want to write my case notes. I just sat. I felt so lazy and disappointed in myself because I wanted to do things. I wanted to stay caught up on my case notes. I wanted to cook dinner. I wanted to go for a walk on the nice evenings. So I made the decision to stop taking my meds. I talked with my doctor about it and she lowered my dosage from 60 mg to 30 mg. I take the 30 for 2 weeks and then I am off. I started the lower dosage Friday night.
Now the withdrawal symptoms are here. I am having some awful brain zaps. If you don’t know what those are, be lucky you don’t have to experience them. They feel like jolts of electricity going through my brain. However, sometimes I feel them in my whole body. Sometimes they are close together and I feel dizzy. Sometimes they just happen once in a while. Either way, they are horrible and I would not want to wish them on anyone. I am tired, even though I am sleeping. I have had days of nausea. I have headaches… but I am not sure if they are from coming off the med or because I am so tired. But I am tired because of the med so there ya go. My joints are starting to hurt more. But I am going to deal with these to get this poison out of my body.
I am excited to feel like me again.
livebeautifullychatoic 