Detoxing Cymbalta With the Help of Natural Dopamine

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Cymbalta has done more damage to many individuals than good. Many suffer as Cymbalta latches on to them and punishes them when choosing to break up this damaging relationship. It’s a painful journey detoxing from Cymbalta, but it is possible for everyone. Anyone can learn how to influence a natural release of dopamine to help you along your battle with detoxing cymbalta. I share here my story and the tips I used to successfully remove this evil pill from my life. My approach was drastic. I chose to quit cold turkey. No medical provider would ever recommend doing what I did, nor is there any empirical evidence suggesting it’s possible, but I did it. I stopped taking Cymbalta cold turkey. 

I do not recommend that anyone attempt what I did. I was miserable and fought off suicidal thoughts on my own. However, the intense misery only lasted ten days. Would you please review the resources and tips I share here? As you conduct a controlled detox plan with your provider’s support, the information I share here uses an understanding of the neuropathways of the brain that influence motivation and well-being, taking control of the adverse effects of Cymbalta. These techniques use how the brain operates and use these concepts to your advantage to win the intense internal fight as your body struggles with the detox.

Understanding Cymbalta

Cymbalta, an antidepressant also known as Duloxetine, is a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) used for depression and anxiety and to treat pain. It addresses the imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. Cymbalta is a Black Box warning medication, meaning it has severe negative side effects that should be considered before prescribing the drug. These include dysphoric mood, irritability, agitation, dizziness, sensory disturbances (e.g., paresthesia such as electric shock sensations), anxiety, confusion, headache, lethargy, emotional lability, insomnia, hypomania, tinnitus, and seizures.

Cymbalta has a” half-life” of 8-12 hours. Meaning in 8 hours, it loses half of its potency. Once the medicine leaves your system, your body can immediately respond with a discontinuation syndrome.  Discontinuation syndrome can affect anyone who tries to stop taking this drug. Typically this is when one will feel these adverse side effects. After three weeks of taking Cymbalta, I would experience discontinuation syndrome in the evening and throughout the night as I tried to sleep. Cymbalta made my sleep worse. The adverse side effects would disappear the next day when I took another pill. I tried taking medicine at night only to find the negative impact returning around noon. This experience, coupled with the fact that this medicine was not helping me, immediately influenced my decision to remove this pill from my life.

Multiple suicides have been attributed to Cymbalta. It is highly recommended that this medication is slowly tapered off in conjunction with applied psychotherapy techniques, sometimes combined with other medicines to help combat the effects of withdrawals. These negative experiences occur because when taking Cymbalta, over time, a chemical dependency develops. The brain changes; it believes that this drug is needed, comparable to how your brain demands water; your body fights to obtain the drug. The misery felt is your body attempting to motivate you through discomfort to continue to take the drug.

Discontinuing Cymbalta typically creates a painful, unbearable shock described as brain zaps or brain shivers. It’s difficult to describe a brain zap if you’ve never experienced one.  I compare it to the sudden sound of a large cardboard box sliding across the garage floor accompanied by dizziness. In this video below, I attempt to mimic the sight and sound of a brain zap by giving you a virtual brain zap experience, minus the pain.

My Detox Plan and Pain Copying Strategies

Day one of deciding to quit cymbalta cold-turkey, I quickly felt like this was a mistake, but I persevered. I endured two weeks of some of the worst pain imaginable, but the fight was well worth it. The brain zaps dropped from an hourly occurrence to daily until after about four months; the painful brain zaps were no longer ruining my quality of life. I tell you this because it is possible to regain an everyday life after taking Cymbalta. My wife and children became very worried. I looked as if I was dying, my eyes were blood shot and patches of red covered my face. It was quite the struggle, though. My fight was real, it increased suicidal thoughts, and for ten days, I was in the almost unimaginable physical and emotional pain I had ever experienced, yet this short durations of extreme provided positive results.

Understanding the brain’s motivation/reward network and how to trigger a release of the ‘feel good’ hormones whenever I wanted helped me to win my fight against Cymbalta. My strong connection to a purpose and meaning in life, a high level of grit developed from life experiences, and the knowledge of how to influence dopamine release empowered me to win this fight.

Understanding how to control the brain and influence the release of the feel-good hormones is the first step in this process. Harvard Medical School explains that the feel-good hormones and neurotransmitters are dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin. You can choose to release these at any moment, and I will explain how.

Dopamine a Feel-Good Hormone

When the sympathetic nervous system activates the fight or flight response, cortisol releases, increasing stress, anxiety, depression, anger, or any emotion, causing emotional pain. We all have within us the capability of turning off the release of cortisol and turning on the release of the feel-good hormone called dopamine. Sometimes we may not turn off the negative emotions entirely, but we can lessen the effects by triggering dopamine release. Learning to influence dopamine release anytime you want will empower you to turn off these negative emotional responses and help you endure the pain of detoxing from cymbalta.

According to Dr. Timothy Legg, a board-certified mental health psychologist, dopamine is the feel-good hormone associated with pleasure memory and motor function. It is also part of the motivation and reward system. Pauline Belujon, the primary author of a study titled Dopamine System Dysregulation in Major Depressive Disorders, explains that dopamine disfunction is found in those with anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Cymbalta influences these negative symptoms as well and can be reversed when you control a release of dopamine. Learning to influence your mind to release dopamine can lessen the effects of these disorders.

Learning to Influence Dopamine Release

Reflect on your past joyful experiences. Think about songs, movies, TV shows, or life events.  Our brains are programmed to release dopamine based on past learned experiences. Through the human developmental learning process, the brain has associated certain stimuli that require dopamine release. The higher the emotional response to joyful experiences, the greater chance of memories to be stored. These experiences can range from past interactions with loved ones, positive holiday experiences, or the feelings you felt as you listened to a song or remembered a fun time you had with friends growing up. We can access various memories and perform actions to access the natural-born dopamine response within our human body.

Before choosing to quit Cymbalta cold-turkey, I reflected on anything I knew would influence a natural dopamine release. When someone detoxes Cymbalta, a provider will often prescribe you another drug to help reduce the discontinuation of side effects. Rather than taking another medication, you can choose to influence dopamine naturally.  Below is a list of what I call my dopamine bank of activities. I relied on these controls as an escalation when discontinuation syndrome intensified.

• Spiritual Assitance. I relied on my faith. Research on brain activity during a feeling of spirituality demonstrates increased activity in the frontal lobe regions of the brain responsible for executive functioning. Reading scriptures, praying, and accessing a spiritual sensation increases your ability to not only release dopamine but counter the stress response that can influence suicide.

• Random Acts of Kindness We are hardwired to belong to a community and support the communities’ needs for survival. For this reason we are naturally rewarded with dopamine when we serve those around us. While suffering with this misery, by helping random strangers through an act of service, I would feel good inside as this natural release of dopamine’s occurred throughout my body.

• Eating Skittles. This may sound odd, but I recalled the feel-good sensation occurring when eating skittles through my reflection. It had something to do with the rapid release of sugar that caused me to feel good. Although high levels of sugar aren’t healthy, it provided a momentary relief when I needed it.

• Dopamine Bank Music Playlist. Certain songs always make me feel calm. I prepared a playlist of these songs. The Key is also to have your headphones and listening device charged and ready when you need them.

• Motivational YouTube Videos. Specific motivational videos influence inspiration and dopamine release. I think back on my childhood. I thought back on the videos that motivated me to work out are seek to improve myself. I created a YouTube playlist and had these videos easily accessible.

• Daily Exercise. Exercising creates some stress on the body, but it’s healthy stress. Studies demonstrate that there is an increase in healthy brain activity and a decrease in the release of stress hormones during exercise. During my detox, I exercised for 20 minutes twice a day.

• Smell Lavender Oil. A 2013 study published in the International Journal of Nursing Practice found that lavender oils are rated high above other oils for calming the mind and body. I didn’t discover this research until later, but I found a calming effect of lavender oil. Lavender oil will release dopamine in most people. I had this essential oil next to my bed and carried it in my pocket throughout my detox. I would smell it during the tough times, and it did provide the calming I needed.

• Meditation, Mindfulness, Yoga, and Tai Chi. All of these techniques will influence the release of dopamine and turn down the fight or flight response.  These activities will increase activity in the frontal lobes controlling positivity and decrease activity in the limbic system, which is responsible for influencing the discontinuation syndrome symptoms.

• Somatic Tracking Pain The Pain Psychology Center describes somatic tracking as mindfully being aware of the pain sensation, helping the mind feel safe through self-affirmation that the pain being felt is an invalid response. I have used this technique to eliminate chronic back pain. You learn to change your perception of the pain. During my cymbalta detox period, I took somewhat of a sadistic approach toward the pain. I knew the pain would leave my body soon, and I forced myself to enjoy it. By doing this, I was forcing the fight for flight to calm down, influencing the release of dopamine, causing a reduction in pain.

I hope these techniques help you. I can truly empathize with those suffering from cymbalta. The more natural approaches taken toward this fight, the better the results. We all have the power to control the way our body responds to the environmental variables surrounding us. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Some have no issues with cymbalta but many of us do. After my experience, I advocate against cymbalta with anyone who may be considering this drug. The side effects are not worth the benefits, and for some like me, there are no benefits, only misery.

About Post Author

Chris Pierce

chris.pierce23@gmail.com

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