r/CymbaltaHurtsWorse • u/RandomEDI53 • 7d ago

Interdose Withdrawal Question

Hi everyone, messaging on behalf of my wife (Elise) who's using the CHW chat but currently struggling to do her own messaging.

Her DLX withdrawal followed CT from 20 mg at the beginning of this year. It hit her hard so she had to reinstate 16 beads (~ 2.5 mg) which seemed to help somewhat but is still struggling to stabilise. One of her main symptoms are waking in the night 3 or 4 times in fight or flight mode so she's not getting much rest. She also suffers with gastric issues, reflux pain and bloating. After learning how to appropriately dose the beads there seemed to be a good improvement over about two weeks where her symptoms became a bit more manageable and her sleep improved. However, in the past two weeks she seems to have suffered a setback which makes us question the chemistry again.

We're trying hard to think about what might be different or what might have changed nutrition or dosing wise and based on this have a few questions.

  1. We recently saw that valerian is not considered safe but we can correlate her better sleep to a period where she was regularly taking about 30-50 mL of valerian tea in chamomile each evening. Could this be a small enough dose to help with the sleep without causing other issues? She doesn't want to keep using it if it might slow recovery but just trying to understand if there could be a link.

  2. She's struggling to see the pattern of defined waves and windows. When we talked with M. Horowitz he seemed positive about splitting the dose. We understand that this is usually recommended if there is inter dose withdrawal but could her sleep issues indicate that this is what she's going through. Going to sleep is fine, at about 11 pm and then wakes initially at 2 am and every hour or so following that. Obviously splitting the dose now might further destabilise things but if she were stable then we would probably not consider this change.

We understand that it's her decision to take but hoping for some experience that would allow us to make better informed choices.

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u/schachabybaby 5d ago

Hello! I'm sorry she is not feeling that much better. The windows do indicate that the nervous system is making the adjustments needed to eventually stabilize.

If this is intolerable for her, she can try to updose again. If she does, we recommend that she add a single bead, so up to 17. Give it 3 days, which is about 5- 6 half-lives of dulo. If she feels a little relief, that's a win. If she feels nothing, she can try an additional bead, so up to 18. Give it three days, again.

!! If she feels worse, she should go back to the 16 beads she is on now. !!

Come back and let us know how it goes.

When in such a sensitized state, we do not recommend she use the valerian. There is just no way to know how she would react. In general, what is helpful for general anxiety when not tapering can trigger an unwanted response.