Hi,
I've been taking Lyrica for at least 5 years and this year the doctors also gave me Cymbalta for FM (I've had three spinal surgeries after an accident). Anyway, I started having trouble concentrating, remembering, making conections, I would run into people who knew me and could swear I'd never seen them in my life, feeling my brain as if in mud, unable to move (figuratively and literally), uncapable of doing what I had to do at work or home (I thought I was procrastinating, but it was more an unability to focus), loosing muscle even though I swim at least three times a week, unable to read (which I love), to focus my eyes, being itchy (particularily the legs)... and while trying to find info (doctors said it couldn't be neither drug) I read loads of posts of people having the same symptoms and who'd gone through hell quiting the drugs (Cymbalta was worse). I'm off Lyrica for about 5 weeks now (I did it very slowly —most people do it in a week—), and, apparently, there's no way to quit on Cymbalta —whether slowly or cold turkey you go through hell, which is where I am). I can't sleep, I feel as if my brain shortcircuits every few minutes, I'm moody, I have little tolerance and I'm getting quite depressed (besides all the other symptoms I mentioned at the beginning). Oh, and I just can't sleep. I've been sleeping about 90 min a night, and not even straight. So I feel like crap. I've tried to find reliable studies by really good institutions on long-term use of these drugs and found none (in fact, I did find that nobody's done a long-term study on Cymbalta despite the huge amount of people feeling the same). I feel like my choice is to loose my mind but sleep ok while I get dementia (one of the possible side-effects of both Lyrica and Cymbalta), or to go crazy from not sleeping. I can't even work anymore. Has anyone experienced something like this or knows where to turn for information?
Thank you.
ary
I've been taking Lyrica for at least 5 years and this year the doctors also gave me Cymbalta for FM (I've had three spinal surgeries after an accident). Anyway, I started having trouble concentrating, remembering, making conections, I would run into people who knew me and could swear I'd never seen them in my life, feeling my brain as if in mud, unable to move (figuratively and literally), uncapable of doing what I had to do at work or home (I thought I was procrastinating, but it was more an unability to focus), loosing muscle even though I swim at least three times a week, unable to read (which I love), to focus my eyes, being itchy (particularily the legs)... and while trying to find info (doctors said it couldn't be neither drug) I read loads of posts of people having the same symptoms and who'd gone through hell quiting the drugs (Cymbalta was worse). I'm off Lyrica for about 5 weeks now (I did it very slowly —most people do it in a week—), and, apparently, there's no way to quit on Cymbalta —whether slowly or cold turkey you go through hell, which is where I am). I can't sleep, I feel as if my brain shortcircuits every few minutes, I'm moody, I have little tolerance and I'm getting quite depressed (besides all the other symptoms I mentioned at the beginning). Oh, and I just can't sleep. I've been sleeping about 90 min a night, and not even straight. So I feel like crap. I've tried to find reliable studies by really good institutions on long-term use of these drugs and found none (in fact, I did find that nobody's done a long-term study on Cymbalta despite the huge amount of people feeling the same). I feel like my choice is to loose my mind but sleep ok while I get dementia (one of the possible side-effects of both Lyrica and Cymbalta), or to go crazy from not sleeping. I can't even work anymore. Has anyone experienced something like this or knows where to turn for information?
Thank you.
ary