Cymbalta

hello!!
I’m new here and recently diagnosed after years of being sick and in pain and going from doctor to doctor. I’m going to start taking cymbalta in a few days and have read so many horrible stories about the horrible withdrawal it has. Can anyone here tell me about their experience? Did it help while you were taking it? What were the side effects you experienced? Did anything help to lessen them? And how were you able to eventually ween off it?

Hi. I was on it once and weaned off very slowly. And I was ok. Good luck to you. HUGGGGGGS
Suzie

My advice:

Try something else. Cymbalta does somewhat help but it is so hard to stop taking it. My doctor doesn’t agree that I should stop taking it. I have gained 30 pounds (I’m only 5’2") since I started it in 8/14. My doctor prescribed it for my foot pain.

My doctor never mentioned anything to me about the withdrawal symptoms and mine were so severe that I just started taking it again.

It helps me, but everyone is different. It took me about two weeks to adjust to it though. I was dizzie and nauseated at first, but I noticed a difference right off even with the initial symptoms. I now take cymbalta and lyrica. I have gained weight but not until I started lyrica. I will say try to take it at the same time of the day until you get adjusted to it. I hope this helps,
Mom52

I've been on Cymbalta for almost a year and it has helped me. It does take some getting used to but it helped with a lot of my symptoms. One of the biggest things it did was help relieve some anxiety. I have always been triggered in times of stress. When you are anxious, that means you are ALWAYS triggered. I have heard horror stories about Cymbalta but I try to ignore it since it has been working for me. The amount of flares I have, dropped. Yes, I have gained some weight and a few other small things but that was happening anyway with just the Fibro. Everyone is different but anything that helps relieve this pain is worth the side effects.

I was put on Cymbalta early on in my journey with Psoriatic arthritis, well before I started experiencing fibro symptoms. Since I didn't have fibro, it didn't work at ALL. My doc at the time wanted me to stick with it so I was on it for a good 6 months. Going off of it was pretty bad simply because my doc didn't taper me off of it. (grrr) I ended up having to go back up to my original dose and do a taper based on advice from my GP. With the long, slow taper discontinuing wasn't that bad. I think most folks struggle coming off of it because they don't know that a taper is a MUST. Also, if you're on it for a shorter amount of time, it's easier to stop it. In other words, if you're not seeing any results in 30 days, it's time to stop and try something else.