Six Months off Cymbalta and I can Walk Again

Six Months Free of Cymbalta and I can Walk Again!
(a miracle instead of medical competence)
by Lisa Macafee

I am a little over six months out from being progressively poisoned over the course of five years by Cymbalta.  That sounds dramatic.  Let me try again.

In 2025, I have been cleansing my body after my doctors destroyed my health over five years with Cymbalta.  No?  Still too dramatic?  Hmmm…

It’s a hard thing to not be dramatic about.

For five years, my doctors had me on Cymbalta for pain related to fibromyalgia.  I don’t think it helped my pain at all, as I’ve not had more pain now that I’m off it.

What it did do was progressively weaken my entire Musculo-skeletal system, causing my body to become so fatigued I needed to use a wheelchair for any standing or walking more than a few minutes in length.

It’s a tricky one because the effects built up over time – it’s not like I started taking it and felt terrible – it didn’t seem to have any immediate effect.  But over five years?  Hoo-boy.
 
Cymbalta caused me not to be able sleep through the night – but they had more pills with more side effects for that. 

It also contributed to dry mouth, leading to two gum graft surgeries for me to keep my teeth. 

I could hardly parent, and I’m so grateful to Ryan for really sticking with that “in sickness or in health” bit or I likely would have lost my marriage, because I was not fun or very helpful in this time.  Coming home after work I just needed to rest.

For folks who have not experienced chronic fatigue at this level, I’m sure it sounds like exaggeration, but it felt like my body would deflate and be unable to sit up or stand, think, reason, or complete even the most basic of tasks.  For anyone unfamiliar, please see the spoon theory, which describes how tasks most people even don’t consider become challenges and barriers for those of us with chronic illnesses, especially on bad days.

Working 30 hours a week was way too much, and I’m grateful my boss let me extend my contract so I could take every other Wednesday off to rest and go to doctor’s appointments.  Of which I went to many.  Without this accommodation, I likely would have lost my job.  As it was, I still called out multiple days a month.

I saw so many doctors desperate to find out what had gone wrong with my life and none of them thought to look at the side effects for the drugs they prescribed me.  None. Of. Them.  That’s not okay.  I saw at least five different general practitioners, a rheumatologist, a dermatologist, two oral surgeons, a neurologist, and a psychologist.  None of them figured out they were destroying my life with Cymbalta (again, pardon the dramatics, but that’s how it feels).

My doctors never did figure out they were the ones making me sick.  I had to figure it out myself.  I am so grateful I never let go of the feeling that something was wrong and didn’t agree with my doctors that this was just my life now. 

I read about menopause, hormone replacement therapy, auto-immune diseases, mast-cell disorder, and more.  When nothing fit, I went through every medication and supplement’s side effects and started systematically taking myself off each one.

I took myself off an anti-depressant, an anti-anxiety, a sleep medication, a bunch of supplements, and Cymbalta was the one.  After getting off Cymbalta, I no longer need the other prescriptions I was on, because they were all to combat side-effects of Cymbalta!

Six months off the medication?  I went to Legoland with my kids on Friday and didn’t use a mobility device because I didn’t need one.  I walked around all day and we had so much fun.  Granted, the day after, I crashed real hard and needed to rest, but this still is a huge win.
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I kept looking at my partner and exclaiming how overjoyed I was that I could walk.  It’s something I’ll never take for granted again.