[timeghost]

Hi everybody,

To make a long story short, I'll cut right to the chase.

I've been on Cymbalta for 3 years after many different meds. I've been diagnosed with depression and panic disorder. Cymbalta helped mostly

However, 2 months ago I started working out. This included weightlifting 3 times a week. I noticed that I was in a way better mood, but my sleep was getting decreased. I could normally sleep 10 hours easily and now I was getting 5-6 with no real issues. A month after starting I noticed I just could not sleep anymore. I wasn't able to fall asleep. My doc recommended we cut the cymbalta and taper off. In the mean time, I was using Xanax to sleep. It's been over a month and I'm still having the same issues. I tried Ambien, which didn't do anything. My mind feels like it's constantly on. When I take a drug like Ambien of NyQuil, it makes my body tired, but not my head.

Could I be going through a hypo manic episode? I

[lunaticfringe]

Are you having any other symptoms of hypomania?

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/hypomanic-episode-symptoms/

[Chickenkicker]

You say you've been diagnosed with depression. I was diagnosed with depression also for 30yrs...but they were wrong! I was given Cymbalta too in 2000, and it shot me into orbit: blew the best job I ever had, started a meth & alcohol addiction, got a divorce, made horrendous family altering decisions that still affect me today, and wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on a spending obsession. You are holding it together right now doing positive things while I searched out the negative...but that doesn't mean you may not be creeping toward hypomania.

These days we know giving someone who is truly bipolar an antidepressant by itself without a mood stabilizer increases the chance they will go off hypomanic/manic. The way you are reacting to the Cymbalta gives me shivers from my memory of that terrible decade that changed me negatively forever.

Could your diagnosis be wrong? My psychs kept missing my bipolar diagnosis because I had lifelong friends...a career, and was very social. They get really myopic sometimes and don't look at the big picture.

[Crazy Hitch]

I don't know for sure I can only hazard some kind of guess since you asked - I'd say you have some symptoms (dunno about enough I can't say - you may have some others that you haven't quite written down atm but your doc will ask you that anyway) and yes for precautionary measures that's probably why you were told to stop the Cymbalta OR you were told to stop the Cymbalta maybe because based on what you have said, doesn't sound like you're in a depressive phase so would make sense to taper it off.

What does your doc make of this entire situation?

[BlackSheep79]

I'm 35 and when I was 15 is when I did a 180. Back then they didn't diagnose teens as bipolar and diagnosed me as depressed. They kept shoving anti-depressants down my throat and the multiple idiots I saw didn't realize I was hypomanic. I wasnt diagnosed until eight years ago and my new and wonderful pdoc says if need be he will only put me on a small dose of ADs. I would recommend going and seeing a pdoc and explain everything that is going on.

[timeghost]

I have been diagnosed with bipolar by a few therapists and two psychiatrists I've seen.

For roughly 5-7 years I was on Lexapro an Seroquel. I would always be sleeping. I was still depressed, and didn't like the way I felt, but I managed. If I remember correctly, my doctor STARTED me off at 200mg of Seroquel, and I eventually tapered down to to 12.5 mg, and still had the same effect. Which makes me believe it was built up in my system for so long, that even the smallest dose has the same effect. I actually abruptly stopped the Lexapro and Seroquel, which caused me to go into a manic episode for one day. I'll never forget that day.

After that I was put back on lexapro and trazadone. Then the trazadone stopped working (which was given to me for sleep) It caused my head to feel so stuffed, I would cry from the pain. Eventually I was hospitalized. Out of the hospital, I was put on Cymbalta from my new doc. Everything was great. Well, not great, but much improved. I was able to use only that med to manage. Which was amazing. I lost interest in most activities I once loved, but I was able to function better, so I took it. However, every night I would get suicidal thoughts hoping I wouldn't wake up in the morning, but I knew to expect that and just shrug it off.

But then the exercise and dieting came, and I felt great! But I wasn't sleeping as much. And the it turned to full blown insomnia and the Cymbalta feeling like it was frying my brain for the lack of a better term. But as of now, I feel like I'm on a stimulant, yet Im not taking any drug. My brain and heart feel like I did some cocaine, but the rest of my body hurts because it's so tired. Even when I start yawning I can't sleep. I don't feel that depressed or anxious, but it's lingering.

One thing I did notice when I was getting off the cymbalta (I skipped a day and the next dose I took half) is that that when I took that half dose, it make me SO emotional. Crying and the whole nine. But it would eventually wear off.

My theory is that because Cymbalta has an affinity for norepinephrine, when I worked out I was just getting too much of it. And now I have too much of it in my system, even though I've been off Cymbalta for almost 8 days. The only drug that will put me to sleep is Xanax. I tried Ambien and OTC meds. I know lithium lowers norepinephrine, so I might ask my doc for that.

[Chickenkicker]

I have a 'love/hate' feeling about mental health 'professionals'. Sometimes just showing up to a psych isn't enough...they are the ones who gave me the antidepressant alone because they didn't know better in the first place...why is anybody's guess. Psychs are representative of the general population. There are lazy ones, egotistical ones, indifferent ones and ones that after getting their diploma, threw their books out and are just coasting along drawing big paychecks, content making life altering decisions for sufferers using decades old information...because they aren't motivated enough to learn the latest thinking on bipolar.

Lol The first therapist I ever saw in 1982 told me to take a baseball bat and knock the hell out of a telephone pole. I'm not kidding...that was his recommendation! Now 33yrs later he's in jail for molesting two special needs clients. A really quality therapist.

At the end of the day though its a shame we have to, in the depths of our symptoms, know enough to protect ourselves and learn enough about our disorder to take to the people that SHOULD know how to treat us. I took a bombing from a egotistical psych right out of hospital in '11, and lost almost a year in a mis-medicated fog. After I fired his sorry azz the next two meetings with potential psychs you could say was pretty tense.

Finally found a female psych that made my world right again. I learned that when a psych suggests something don't just nod your head...get up on the edge of your seat and ask how they came to that conclusion. You'll find out really quick which ones know what they're talking about and which ones are playing pin the tail on the donkey.

[wiretwister]

Originally Posted by Chickenkicker

when a psych suggests something don't just nod your head...get up on the edge of your seat and ask how they came to that conclusion. You'll find out really quick which ones know what they're talking about and which ones are playing pin the tail on the donkey.

Amen........