r/CymbaltaHurtsWorse

Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well today. I have a question and I am asking mostly out of genuine curiosity. I know that everyone is different so I suspect that responses will vary greatly. But I am curious at what point do people start reducing by only ONE BEAD at a time?
I am currently at 140 beads, so I have a ways to go yet. I hear a lot of people say around the 50 beads mark is when they began reducing by one bead.
I am currently reducing by 4 beads each time but I know that will have to change eventually. I’ve had to adjust my reductions a few times now by making them smaller.
Thanks all and sending everyone lots of love, strength and hope on their journeys! And again, I am just genuinely curious of other’s experiences!

Hi y’all. Been on cymbalta since December 2025 so not very long.

Ramped up to 60mg, but at one point I missed my dose for three days when my meds ran out and I couldn’t get a refill despite frantically contacting my dr. I ended up having to go to the ER because my withdrawal symptoms got so bad.

after that I asked her to start tapering off because I was and am afraid of going through that again.

so we began, and i started weaning down to 40 by taking two twenties, i think for two weeks. didnt feel too bad during this time.

then to twenty mg for two weeks, still handling it okay.

then a final week of on and off the 20mg, for one week, then I stopped it entirely, that was this past Friday, it is now Thursday. So almost a week off it.

It was a rough week admittedly. Dizziness came in waves.

Saturday was okay. Monday got harder. Tuesday was starting to be rough, then I could not sleep at all and the lack of rest made it so much worse. I woke up with a bad headache. So then it’s Wednesday, & I started feeling so dizzy I couldn’t barely move.

By the end of the day I had to do a virtual urgent care visit to beg for some kind of symptom relief. They prescribed me 12.5mg of meclezine. It’s helping some, but maybe like 25% reduction of dizziness. Not a lot of help.

Now it is Thursday and I slept most of the day, still can’t really move and even when sitting still, i am so dizzy. I’ve gotten bran zaps since Monday. Headaches. Fatigue and overheating, but shaking from chills. No appetite. Even daily persistent diarrhea sorry for the tmi. So its making me more dehydrated.

I messaged my dr yesterday to report discontinuation syndrome, and again today to let her know I had to go to the urgent care. I still have not heard back.

I’ve already taken two meclizine today, am only supposed to take three a day max according to the bottle instructions. I was taking zofran and it didnt help so i switched to this since i know ur not supposed to take both at the same time.

I took Tylenol and Ibuprofen too and it helped a tiny bit too. Someone on the other cymbalta reddit said I am likely tapering off too soon, I learned about the microdosing and bead counting, as well as taking prozac/fluoexetine to help bc of the longer half life, and none of that was mentioned to me by the dr…

Since tmrw is Friday I probably won’t hear from her till Monday at the earliest. Not sure what to do, how long to expect to be out of commission. I’m missing work, losing out on income, and I’m so worried.

Hello. I am tapering off of approximately 25 mg. I ramped up from 10 mg/day , peaked at 30 mg for a day or two, then taped back down to about 20 mg (varied hours to manage dosage). Ramp up started mid June, tapering started July 17th. I have been at 16 mg for about 3 weeks. I suffer from some dizziness and extreme fatigue. These both increased significantly about 8 days ago when I cause a nasty virus.

I had been on Cymbalta from 2009’to 2022 and tapered down over a year into 2023 with no issues. This time is far more difficult, despite a 4 week ramp up period.

I am attempting a hyperbolic tapering, roughly 10% every 3 weeks. However, I have never really gotten stable. I will see my original psychiatrist next week. I had no direction from my pcp so I finally got an appointment with my original psychiatrist

I’m only halfway through my taper and I’ve noticed that I am much better than I was on 60mg. But what I want to know is, will I ever be normal again? Will I ever be able to work a full time job again? Will all of this weight fall off and my other co-morbid conditions brought on by Cymbalta go away? I just want some hope.

I've been on duloxetine 60 mg for 10+ years and I'm planning a slow taper. I'm in California with Cigna.

Bead counting is a hard no for me. I have a milligram scale, so I'll either weigh beads or use compounded capsules at custom strengths.

Two questions:

1. Anyone in California have a compounding pharmacy they'd recommend for duloxetine taper doses? Rough monthly cost would help, since compounded meds usually aren't covered.

2. Can anyone recommend a psychiatrist or prescriber who takes Cigna (CA, telehealth fine) who understands slow/hyperbolic tapering and will write scripts for a compounding pharmacy?

I welcome your feedback!