Lessening your usual daily dose of Cymbalta can cause a thick kind of dizziness.
Cutting the dose down to wean off Cymbalta (for whatever reason) can leave a side effect of dizziness.
I witnessed it when my mother’s system suddenly was 60 mg less of Cymbalta. She had no choice but to get off Cymbalta because she changed insurance plans.
The new medical plan did not cover Cymbalta, so she got a prescription for Effexor, which belongs to the same class of drugs that Cymbalta does.
She was on 90 mg (three, 30 mg capsules) of Cymbalta per day, taken all at once every evening.
To make the transition smoothly to Effexor, she was instructed to take half a 75 mg tablet of Effexor in the morning, and then another half at night, with 60 mg Cymbalta.
She was to do this till she ran out of Cymbalta, which happened about a week later.
Her body didn’t even recognize the transition; she experienced no side effects from adding in the Effexor along with subtracting 30 mg of Cymbalta per day.
However, her body really recognized something was different when it was time to take one whole Effexor tablet in the morning, and one whole one at night, which was the step to take once the Cymbalta ran out.
The next morning, my mother was dizzy as can be, and couldn’t walk on her own. I knew it had to be from the final stage of the transition.
Because my mother had already been on the Effexor for a week with no side effects, why would increasing the Effexor dose cause so much dizziness?
On the other hand, her body was suddenly 60 mg less of Cymbalta, with NONE of this drug in her system at all at this point.
Thus, the dizziness had to be from Cymbalta discontinuation syndrome.
The dizziness dissipated when my mother sat leaning back, or was lying down. She lied down for an hour soon after getting up in the morning.
She felt fine lying down, but getting up brought the dizziness on full force. She was unable to get down the staircase without assistance.
She sat in a recliner chair and the dizziness diminished. When she sat upright, it returned. She was confined to the chair. She needed a walker to get to the bathroom.
I had an idea: Maybe this Cymbalta withdrawal dizziness had to be worked out of her system, and that wasn’t going to happen if she stayed in the recliner all day.
The dizziness was the only symptom. My mother said several times, “I feel great, except that I’m so dizzy.”
I told her to sit upright while watching TV, and let the dizziness work its way out.
She had napped in the recliner for a few hours and still, the dizziness persisted once she sat upright.
But I told her to continue sitting upright and see if the symptom diminishes. And it did.
I told her to walk around the kitchen a bit; I’d assist to make sure she didn’t fall.
Within a few minutes of walking, my mother reported that the dizziness wasn’t as bad. She then sat upright at the kitchen table.
She napped again in the recliner, and then I told her to walk around the kitchen island five times, and within a minute or so, she told me to let go of her; she felt that good.
She continued walking, and over the next five minutes, the dizziness dissipated even more.
She even did a little kitchen work, and continued staying on her feet. Not long after, the dizziness was completely gone.
A person’s first instinct, when hit with severe dizziness, is to lie down or stay reclined, and not to get up if this makes the dizziness worse.
That’s good advice if the dizziness is due to a medical problem, but in this case, it clearly seemed to be from getting off Cymbalta completely, even though she was now on a similar drug.
Effexor and Cymbalta belong to the same class of drugs, but on the molecular level, they are NOT identical.
For Cymbalta withdrawal dizziness, being up and about, and walking around, was obviously the key to resolving the problem.
IMPORTANT: The patient should walk around only with someone at their side in case they lose balance until they are sure that the dizziness is gone.
I believe that had my mother stayed put in the recliner, the symptom would have plagued her straight through to bedtime.
If you have Cymbalta withdrawal dizziness, see what happens when you do the very thing that you’d never think to do: walk around and do light housework.
However, make sure someone is right at your side at all times, ready to protect you from falling, as I did with my mother.
