I’m 22 weeks pregnant for the first time and decided to taper off of Cymbalta 60mg. My psychiatrist had me drop down 10mg every two weeks, everything was going fine until I hit 20mg and she recommended going every other day. After doing that for a week I started having the dreaded withdrawal symptoms that I’ve read many many times on this subreddit. Skin crawling/itchiness, insomnia, nausea have been the most prominent. Mind you this is my second time trying to get off of this godforsaken medication. The first time the doctor had me cross taper to Prozac, which had similar nightmarish withdrawal symptoms, though included severe depression/numbness, even mild SI. After realizing what was happening, I quickly went back to 60mg Cymbalta. I was so defeated, fearing that I’d never be able to get off this medication. It was only until getting pregnant and worrying about the withdrawal symptoms that my baby might encounter after birth that I decided I needed to try again. Well, here I am back in this hellscape. I’ve since returned to 30mg Cymbalta daily, after a week of getting about 2-3 hours of sleep a night despite taking Benadryl, Unisom, and magnesium. I spoke with a different provider and got a script for Trazodone 50mg which had worked for the past two nights, but for some reason has me back to a sleepless night of tossing and turning, itching my skin and praying for sunlight to come up. Not to mention, I vomited pretty hardcore earlier in the day, which I believe was another withdrawal symptom rearing its ugly head. Feeling so low about this whole journey, wishing I never started this medication years ago and still wondering if I’ll ever be able to get off of it.
I’ve read many success stories with bead counting, though the idea of starting down this road again after hopefully stabilizing soon has me genuinely freaked out. Ugh. Thanks for listening.