Mental Health Coming off of duloxitine (cymbalta)

[narcomick]

Coming off of duloxitine (cymbalta) please help

Hi. I am about to come off of duloxetine and will start on prozac before hopefully coming off all antidepressants. I'm hoping you're all familiar with the withdrawal symptoms of duloxitine.. they're unpleasant to say the least, Hellish in fact due to a very short half life and ive only ever made it 3 days without having to turn back. I experienced brain and body zaps, aggression, exhaustion, extreme nausea and vomiting, laughing and crying for no reason, and feeling like i had a bad case of the flu.
I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on how to cope with the withdrawal symptoms and more specifically, wether I can continue to take a low dose of cymbalta untill the prozac kicks in. I will also have a few days worth of lorazepam for this but the withdrawal will last around two weeks at least. Will taking a say 15mg dose of duloxitine while waiting for theach prozac to work pose a risk of serotonin syndrome or will it be safe? Thanks.

 

[CFC]

Hi there, sorry for the late reply. Have you switched from duloxetine before? Switching between antidepressants (that are of a roughly similar class) shouldn't lead to withdrawal symptoms. As you're going straight onto prozac, you should be ok. When you come off the prozac, you'll probably have symptoms though.

 

[narcomick]

I haven't had major withdrawal symptoms to my surprise but thanks anyway, I've been on many antidepressants and duloxitine was certiany one of the worst to quit.. doing OK now though, prozac should take effect soon.