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This automated Tutorial, through a series of questions, will evaluate your situation regarding Cymbalta/duloxetine usage. Once complete, we will walk you through a step-by-step personalized discontinuation plan using the hyperbolic Slow Taper™ method developed at the "Cymbalta Hurts Worse" Group of over 35,000 members on Facebook.
Eli Lilly developed Cymbalta® (registered trademark) in 2004. Since, the generic version called duloxetine has become available.
Cymbalta/duloxetine does two things, unlike most other antidepressants:
We will not argue the value or effectiveness of this drug, but to provide a safe haven and guidance for people who suffer from its many documented side effects and want to stop taking it, avoiding the harsh symptoms of discontinuation.
This medicine is very different in three ways from what you know about other medications.
Click [Next] below to READ ON...
This medicine literally changes your brain chemistry. This means that the changes are not just present when you are taking the drug, the changes exist long AFTER you stop taking the drug. And, those changes REQUIRE the drug for your brain to be stable, so you must keep taking it or suffer potentially horrible side effects.
Cymbalta/duloxetine has a VERY short "half-life", which is the time is takes for your body to absorb 50% the drug. Some drugs, like Ambien at 2 hours, as designed for a short half-life on purpose. But others, like Prozac, have a half-life of up to 10 DAYS.
Cymbalta has a half-life of ONLY 12 hours. Your body suffers a small withdrawal every day between doses. This means that just missing one dose, as you may have found, can bring on bad side effects.
Avoiding these withdrawal symptoms is the goal of the Slow Taper™ method that we will walk you through...
Most drugs you are familiar with have greater effect with higher dosages, proportional with the increases. Cymbalta has much great effect at lower doses.
One Advil helps, but two help more, proportionately. Not so with Cymbalta.
This chart shows that a dose of 20mg has about 75% of the effect of a dose of 60mg. This also shows that a dose of 120mg is likely no more effective than 60mg.
This means that reducing dosages is a delicate balance, and to discontinue from any dose has to be done with the same "hyperbolic" curve.
That is what this site is all about. Using the experiences of over 35,000 victims of this poison, we have developed a "SLOW TAPER™" method. Read on...
Now we will gather information on your particular situation to craft a personalized Slow Taper discontinuation plan. Answer the following questions as best you can...
This plan is substantially based on the research of Dr. Anders Sørensen, a Danish clinical psychologist and PhD in psychiatric drug withdrawal, specializing in helping people come off psychiatric drugs through gradual, hyperbolic tapering and psychotherapy.
Read a recent article from him and his colleagues published at the US National Institute of Health website:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35173954/
Part of their conclusion there was
"Current major clinical practice guidelines provide little support for clinicians wishing to help patients discontinue or taper antidepressants in terms of mitigating and managing withdrawal symptoms. Patients who have deteriorated upon following current guidance on tapering and discontinuing antidepressants thus cannot be concluded to have experienced a relapse..."
Read on to see your personalized plan...
Since the effect of this drug is hyperbolic, we match the reduction of dose over time to its effect. This means that we continue to reduce the dose every period by a small portion of the then-current dose. This method has been followed by tens of thousands of Facebook Group "Cymbalta Hurts Worse" members over many years, with excellent results.
All methods involve dumping out your capsules and building a new capsule with the exact dose dictated from the "Slow Taper Calculation" sheet we provide you.
Method #1 - Weighing - this uses a small, inexpensive scale to weigh the doses. It is easy to do with our detailed tutorial, and you can easily produce 14 capsules in 15 minutes every two weeks.
Method #2 - Counting - for those with good manual dexterity and patience, this method has you counting the micro beads, which number in the hundreds.
Method #3 - Pharmacy - this requires a cooperative "compounding pharmacy" to prepare the exact doses as dictated from the Slow Taper sheet. This can be expensive, and is not flexible if you decide to hold at a dosage for more than the period.
In order to calculate your dosage drops, we offer two methods of generating your dosage reduction guide. If you have Excel or any local spreadsheet application, we provide a downloadable XLSX file.
If you do not have a spreadsheet app, you can get our Excel file and upload it to Google Sheets. A Google account is required. They will work the same.
Excel and compatible "WEIGHT Method" spreadsheet.
When you download, SPECIFY what folder to save the file in, or look in your "Downloads" folder if it does not ask.
Excel and compatible "COUNTING BEADS Method" spreadsheet.
