Once again, being a fellow back pain sufferer, I "feel your pain." :)

I have had serotonin poisoning in the past month. I diagnosed myself, and then had a top psycho-pharmacologist (who doesn't even see patients), go over all the molecules that were given to me. He said I had Bipolar 3, Serotonin POISONING DUE TO ANTI DEPRESSANT USE. Sorry for the empathetic caps, but, I am angry that I was so stupid, as to let this happen to me. I truly wanted to experience relief and I believed the THREE TOP PSYCHIATRISTS who recommended MY combination of medications.

They were wrong in my case. I feel much better without the Cymbalta, as it made me deadly physically and psychiatrically ill. That was no surprise, if you take a deep look into the side effect profile. I believe, that soon, there will be black box warnings on most new SSNRIs, against their use in those with tendencies to excitability , hypomania, and mania.

Have a wonderful day!

At 5'6" and 125 pounds I was taking 375 mg of Effexor XR + Wellbutrin + Lamictal + Flomax. I think that was just way too much for a body my size to handle. The amount of medication I was on was so strong that it was causing bladder spasms, I can only imagine what it was doing to my brain. I tried going off all that stuff cold turkey - DON'T EVER DO THAT!

I don't need to be on an antidepressant anymore. But tomorrow marks the end of my 4th week of withdrawal hell. I can't take too much more of this, and am starting to think about going back on. It would be a complete failure, but I'm tapped out. A month of these symptoms will do that to you-giving up no longer seems like the worst option.

Equating med removal here as hell in anti depressant or anti psychotic removal:

For the 1 week of insomnia and racing mind I endured--the 6 months of hell on and most importantly, the months of removal of the Seroquel was far worse than the racing mind /week of insomnia episode.

As far as giving in to the withdrawals, I didn't think I could last either, and it took well over a month to see those nasty symptoms, such as vomiting, diarhea, shaking, sleeping in a curled fetal position, unable to straighten legs out, charley-horse severity cramps in back muscles(!)--that an ER team even observed--this list is far too long to say that the slammed down morning train wreck, and the withdrawals--outweighed episode.
As in, the benefit outweighs the risk, so take this med attitude. This post I wrote discusses what I thought was going on, was a flare up of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that was in remission for over a decade. What I believe I suffered from was a serotonin type of poisoning, syndrome of sort.
I think it's important to note, and sorry for the long post--that withdrawals of anti-depressants are similar to anti-psychotics, and most psychiatrists do not discuss anti-psychotic withdrawals. They are just beginning to understand the anti-depressant stuff.

Just yesterday, my psychiatrist offered me a low dose of Lexapro, to help me "cope" with my life situation. I said, NO. Then received my free pharma samples of Lamictal in a plastic goodie bag with "Lexapro" on it. Thanks Pharma reps--looks like they made a Lexapro drop off this month, and I was offered it, and never was before.