Saturday, November 14, 2009

Cymbalta and Being Anti-Social

So I was looking at my stats for this place, and I noticed that I'm getting a few hits for "Cymbalta antisocial". I figured, hey, if people click, I may as well tell them what I know since I am on Cymbalta, and am anti-social.

Does it help me be more social?

No. I still don't care for people in general, and still don't want to deal with them. I've found no change except that, since it does raise my give-a-shit threshold, I can handle being around stupidity a bit more than without and not get angry. But does Cymbalta make me want to actually get out and do things with people? Not at all. I was unaware that it was supposed to, though.

I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Cymbalta did make me able to handle working at Time Warner for as long as I did. Handling violent stupidity 70 times a day is too much for me, though, even when medicated.

I know there's also a lot of hubbub about Cymbalta and withdrawal symptoms. After halving my dosage (see this post), I may have had some headaches, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

I am far less sleepy than I was on my previous dosage. I think the sleep apnea has calmed down some as well because I wake up with sandpaper-tongue a lot less than I did before. I should probably see what the affect is on my blood pressure, too, as I also take meds for hypertension.

Anyway, that's my experiences with Cymbalta so far. For comparison purposes, Lexapro had about the same effects until it stopped working, and Pristiq made me mildly homicidal, and I'm of the firm opinion (based on little to no data) that people probably react to all medicines in a similar manner. For example, if you do well with Cymbalta, you might do well with Lexapro too, since I did well with both.

If you have any questions about my experiences or anything at all to add, definitely leave some comments, I'd love to hear from you.

3 comments:

  1. I've been off Cymbalta for a month now. It does make one more tolerant of those things I was intolerant of when I am off them and one of the things I was trying to abate was anger...this has returned, unfortunately. I am determined, however, to end this dependency that I and our entire society has become accustomed to using to thwart our feelings and reactions to the world. There just has to be a more natural alternative. And, the withdrawals were pretty bad for about 2 weeks. I'm now experiencing some dizziness, some headaches and that sloshy feeling where the brain doesn't feel attached to the skull, but all are happening much less frequently than before. We'll see.

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  2. I can definitely understand the sentiment behind trying to get off the drugs but, in my opinion, I'm just getting external help to cope with external issues. That's really how I see the meds. I did a lot of soul searching before trying them and realized two things before I started. One, I was getting upset and angry about things that I shouldn't have been, things that were irrational. Two, the things that really and justifyably make me angry or upset are completely out of my control. So, thus, meds.

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  3. Oops, wrong account. Anthony = Ferret.

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