☼ Cymbaltawithdrawal5600: Introduction

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I may not do much writing tonight, I have been typing a lot on this computer the last week and look what Santa has brought me for Christmas:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bvhk3801dryev0e/2014-12-24%2018.52.11.jpg?dl=0

 

I don't have any storage left for embedded images so this one's in the cloud. It is a Volar Wrist Ganglion that has been growing in size for about a week and tonight started to ache.

 

They will often go away on their own and if I stay off the keyboard it might stop aching.

[mammaP]

Ouch, that looks sore CW.  Hope it eases up for you, I can't imagine you being without your computer

for long, you are such a whizz with it!

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Nope not sore just aches a bit but I have been laying the heating pad on low over it and it feels fine. They are pretty painless and never usually require medical intervention except when they get huge and press on nerves and tendons.

 

I think it has been aggravated by typing a lot, it's placement often has it bumping on the area where I rest my hand to type.

 

Tks for your concern!

[Wildflower0214]

Hope your hand feels better.

 

Btw, congrats on your promotion to mod. You have certainly been through an enormous amount. I'm looking forward to reading your recovery story.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

 

Hope your hand feels better.

 

Btw, congrats on your promotion to mod. You have certainly been through an enormous amount. I'm looking forward to reading your recovery story.

 

Thank you very much, JDM!

 

For what it is worth, I just got done saving all 23 pages (minus this post) to my computer hard drive. It took under 7 minutes and takes up about 32.5 megabytes (a CD holds ~640 mb). The time reflects the lag from the time I request a page from the server to the time it gets displayed on my screen. I can click and save faster than that.

 

My only regret is that my 'mod' status is retroactive in the posting history. I am completely embarrassed that it attaches itself to the drivel I posted when I first got here.

 

To find the rest of my posts in the 1300 or so I have made to date would take months and frankly, I don't want/need them.

 

I am not sure if the HTTrack proggie can selectively fetch pages from a site, I haven't used it for years. It is pretty techy anyway.

 

Unfortunately, when I go back to view the pages they have a huge black box covering the top half of the screen in FF and in IE, the page formatting is non-existent (like the CSS is missing). Clicking the 'next' button fetches the current page from the server and not from the archive. I may have to disble my internet and see what it does. This may be a FF problem in how it is saving pages. I'll post more on this later......

[Wildflower0214]

I understand what you are saying about it being retroactive. Lol

 

But, to me, it is encouraging. Because, clearly you suffered for so long, BUT you came through!!!! And, you came through big time, enough to help guide others.

 

Yes, all very techy stuff. Haha.

 

Hope you enjoyed your holiday.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Thanks JDM, I enjoyed sitting here noodling about the site and listening to Christmas carols from youtube. Hope yours was nice too. Right now I am doing some beading and will bake the last batch of cookies later from grandma's recipe. I am borrowing a camera and a tripod from a friend on Sunday and hope to make a youtube vid of the cookies because I couldn't find another recipe like it on the net. They are Romanian nut horns (cornițe, pronounced 'cor-NEETS-eh'), and it is my first year making them. My mom used to do them and my friends have been hounding me for years about them because she had to stop making them. They sure are liking ME this Christmas (or is it the cookies?)

[Wildflower0214]

Probably both... lol the cookies can't hurt.

 

They sound really good. I have all these food intolerannces now because of WD. I would love to eat a dozen cookies. Haha

 

Glad you had a good holiday. Yes, mine was tolerable, and at this point in WD, that is a blessing. So, I'm not complaining.

 

If you make a YouTube video, let me know. I'm making lists of all the cooking I want to do when I can eat again! And, those cookies are going on the list. I just looked them up, I'm drooling.

[btdt]

I may not do much writing tonight, I have been typing a lot on this computer the last week and look what Santa has brought me for Christmas:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bvhk3801dryev0e/2014-12-24%2018.52.11.jpg?dl=0

 

I don't have any storage left for embedded images so this one's in the cloud. It is a Volar Wrist Ganglion that has been growing in size for about a week and tonight started to ache.

 

They will often go away on their own and if I stay off the keyboard it might stop aching.

I did a google search of the term and there was a picture of them doing surgery on one of the ganglions in a wrist owy.... 

I was told last doc visit that is what I have in my back... no treatment of course... keeps me up a lot at night... hurts a lot ... maybe we will get to it in the new year.  A link to the video about those cookies when you have it ready would be appreciated... I often bake to relieve stress.. makes other people fat... 

some times me if I can tolerate sweets at the time. 

I am glad yours doesn't hurt... i wonder what causes them... I did look when my do said what it was but my siv mind doesn't recall... have a good day CW and rest that wrist!

peace

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I just wanted to post this link to a topic I just started in Off Topic then I'll answer the above posts.

 

Anyone up for a chat on New Year's Eve?

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I just looked them up, I'm drooling.

 

But no one has my grandma's recipe, her's does not have yeast in it:

 

1 lb. butter

11 oz. cream cheese

5 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

5 cups flour

 

Filling:

 

5 egg whites

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups finely ground walnuts

 

Powdered sugar for rolling them out and dusting them after baking.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

 

I may not do much writing tonight, I have been typing a lot on this computer the last week and look what Santa has brought me for Christmas:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bvhk3801dryev0e/2014-12-24%2018.52.11.jpg?dl=0

 

I don't have any storage left for embedded images so this one's in the cloud. It is a Volar Wrist Ganglion that has been growing in size for about a week and tonight started to ache.

 

They will often go away on their own and if I stay off the keyboard it might stop aching.

I did a google search of the term and there was a picture of them doing surgery on one of the ganglions in a wrist owy.... 

I was told last doc visit that is what I have in my back... no treatment of course... keeps me up a lot at night... hurts a lot ... maybe we will get to it in the new year.  A link to the video about those cookies when you have it ready would be appreciated... I often bake to relieve stress.. makes other people fat... 

some times me if I can tolerate sweets at the time. 

I am glad yours doesn't hurt... i wonder what causes them... I did look when my do said what it was but my siv mind doesn't recall... have a good day CW and rest that wrist!

peace

 

 

You have one on your back? Oh yuck! The link explains that they don't really know what causes them.

 

Of course I'll post a link to my vid. I can't use my cat to become famous on YT, maybe my cookies will do it for me

[Wildflower0214]

 

 

I just looked them up, I'm drooling.

But no one has my grandma's recipe, her's does not have yeast in it:

 

1 lb. butter

11 oz. cream cheese

5 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

5 cups flour

 

Filling:

 

5 egg whites

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups finely ground walnuts

 

Powdered sugar for rolling them out and dusting them after baking.

Yummy! Yes, this recipe looks better.

It is officially on the "things I'm going to eat way too much of when I get better" list.

 

Thx!

[btdt]

I think the purritos could make you famous yet don't give up... cookies look wonderful... bet I dare not eat any but I love to bake.. so maybe one day I will make them if I know I have enough people to eat them. 

Ya I have one on my back ...hurts too.  Just always the lucky one it seems.  

 

Thanks for posting the recipe. 

peace

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I think the purritos could make you famous yet don't give up... cookies look wonderful... bet I dare not eat any but I love to bake.. so maybe one day I will make them if I know I have enough people to eat them. 

Ya I have one on my back ...hurts too.  Just always the lucky one it seems.  

 

Thanks for posting the recipe. 

peace

 

the purritos made THIS post 'famous', I am using them as an avatar without permission. Here is the author's page at buzzfeed, she has more cat stuff!!!! Anyone from that post to buzzfeed doing a google image search will 'bust' me. I do not think the images are copyrighted yet but I did not check. I am a poor role model for copyright issues.

 

Edit: I just wrote to inquire about permission for my avatar.)

Edited December 28, 2014 by cymbaltawithdrawal5600
line about about permission

[Wildflower0214]

I just realized you live in Florida. I grew up there..

[luv2knit]

Can't wait to read your recovery story, CW!

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I just realized you live in Florida. I grew up there..

 

I didn't, thank goodness. Although the winters are nice, summers suck big time. I liked CA much better if it weren't so crowded where I wanted to be.....

 

Can't wait to read your recovery story, CW!

 

Well, if I would quit fooling around with cookies and this, it would get done. Took me a week to make it (the blue one), mainly because I did not have the right size beads and I wanted it in these, darn it! I did the gold and purple a couple of weeks ago, I had the right sizes for that one (tho I had to fudge a bit.)

 

I am also going to wait for a bit too. I have been having recurring thoughts about a 'death' dream I had some years ago, it was when I was on meds. It is creeping me out a bit, I want to wait and see if I am decompensating again, though I feel good in all other respects. There just aren't enough hours in the day for all I want to do and read. I am sleeping well but been eating too many cookies and I have tabled the exercise for now till I get done with my cookie movie. Some exercise at the gym makes my back hurt and then I cannot sit at the table and roll the cookies.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I just got a delightful Christmas present from Unfolding Sky. She posted in 'Recovery Stories' that Matt Samet (he was addicted to benzos and wrote a book about his experience) has begun posting at MIA again. I've mentioned him before, he had a relapse into wd 7 years after recovering all due to overuse of caffeine. This experience really changes us.

[Wildflower0214]

I just got a delightful Christmas present from Unfolding Sky. She posted in 'Recovery Stories' that Matt Samet (he was addicted to benzos and wrote a book about his experience) has begun posting at MIA again. I've mentioned him before, he had a relapse into wd 7 years after recovering all due to overuse of caffeine. This experience really changes us.

 

That's a perfect Christmas present. I love recovery stories. I read them all over and over, so that the truth in them becomes bigger than the darkness of the reality I'm going through. It helps me on days when I have nothing left.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I just want to make a note of this:

 

Since way back I have been using f.lux on my comp to change the color temperature of the screen to avoid so much of the "blue light" the monitor emits. I found that in acute wd it did help, especially when I could not sleep and used the comp at night (I could not help it). I even have it on at 3200K during the day. (Read the link, several of us started to use it around the same time. I even have a similar one on my tablet. 3200K is toward the halogen part of the scale, up from incandescent. Daylight is 6500K. My nighttime is 2700K.)

 

I am now trying to edit my cookie movie and it occurred to me I need to see what it really looks like instead of with the artificial color manipulation by f.lux and did I ever get a shock - that blue light of my monitor is INTENSE, it hurt my eyes. I will have to see if it has any effect on my sleep in the days to come, having all of that unfiltered light hitting my eyeballs, because I have had it artificially filtered all day long since January last year. It is not so bad during the day when the shades are up and my task light is on, but when it is still dark in the room it just plain hurts.

[Givemepeace]

Hi CW,

 

I'm quiet new here. Having a tough time of things at the moment(especially last few days).

 

I try and stay away from the threads especially when I am really struggling as the stories can make me worse.

 

Yesterday I started reading yours, my god at the start I wish I hadn't started! I usually switch off but for some strange reason I could not stop reading.

 

I am so glad I did now as you may have saved me yesterday. Your story is amazing and has gave me hope and strength again!!

 

I am so pleased for you that you have came through the other end!!

 

Thank you for your thread!!

 

Mark

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Oh Mark, I am so sorry! I try to warn people away from reading the beginning of my story, I can't even read it myself (I tried several months ago and I got a severe headache!) A big problem is that my 'mod' status is 'retroactive' and having it there at the beginning embarrasses the heck out of me. But it is that way with every mod so I have never asked if it could be changed.

 

I cannot even read back and find the place where I became less "nuts" but if anything, it shows how someone can think they are functioning and be in the beginning stages of wd syndrome (and still detoxing from a cold turkey off high doses of cymbalta).

 

I'd dearly love to know what 'saved' you but you don't have to tell. I am just glad you are here and that being at SA is helping you.

[Givemepeace]

Thank you CW,

 

This place has helped me a lot and answered a few questions and fears, although recently there has been a great influx of new people and my thread has seemed to be overlooked a lot.

 

Please don't ever change your thread, it reads well!!

 

Take care

 

Mark.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Mark, all you have to do is make a comment or ask a question in your thread and it will 'bump' to the top of the first page and be more likely to be seen. Bump as often as you need to to get your question answered (if you have not found it by searching the site as you have been doing).

 

And I can't change my thread, would that I could. I'd have to nuke it and start over

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I am copying a post I made after I started to read one of the studies Alto put in the From journals and scientific sources section titled:

 

Andrews 2011 Blue again: Perturbational effects of antidepressants....

 

QUOTE: Ok, I started reading this article on NCBI and was wondering if Alto had any discussion on it and lo, here it is (after a search).

 

The thing I was most intrigued with was the idea that when the brain pushes to maintain homeostasis in the face of an onslaught of artificial chemicals (ADMs [antidepressant meds]) and those chemicals are withdrawn (as in a precipitous taper or cold turkey) that the brain attempts to compensate to reach homeostasis again and may "overshoot the mark" and the result may be a depression unlike any experienced by the person before.

 

I'll have to do more reading but I am pretty sure that is the right take on it. That explains the statement "this does not feel like my depression" and why the episodes of depression I had during my 2nd year off the drugs and after severe wd hit, were the blackest, deepest, most severe I had ever known.

 

I am trying to put some legs under the things I tell people who are struggling, that there is a reason why they feel the way they do and it is most probably time limited. It was for me, anyway. It is the absence of the meds and not a "relapse". END OF QUOTE

 

So reading those things is tough going, they tie your eyeballs in knots and make my brain constantly have to remember what the medical/scientific terms mean. But that is it in a nutshell unless I change my mind after I finish the article.

[westcoast]

Hi, Cymbalta, I came to your intro after you mentioned in OffEffexor's thread. Your initial condition reminds me a lot of mine, long before I got to this message board. I know you said it was all dreck but it's very interesting and shows your mind was functioning at a high level, even if what was coming out might look weird to others. I did a lot of writing, but not online. Some of it is lost to the winds. Other is tucked away here and there in the Notes program on my Mac. Sometimes I look at it and cringe. It helps me have empathy for the sick version of me, who was trying to express herself and figure out what was goin on. No matter how many times I thought I was well and had finally figured it all out, I was still spellbound and pretty crazy, for want of a better word.

 

You mention tinnitus at some point. Until today, seeing OffEffexor mention it again, and your mention, it hadn't occurred to me that my tinnitus might be from the meds. Doink! It's like neurons are screaming and I can hear them. Did you ever find relief, or did it diminish?

 

WC

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Nope, my tinnitus has not diminished at all unfortunately. Sometimes it changes in pitch a bit but the loudness of it is still there. (It is a warbling type of high pitched hiss.) I am not sure when I first noticed it but it has been there as long as I can remember. I may have noticed it in my 40's when I was trying to learn meditation. But it is way louder now.

 

I was on a tranq, librax, the first time I got some kind of 'depression' though it was not called that per se, when in my 20's. Then something else again in my 30's and a bunch of TCAs (the 'amines') and prozac and zoloft in my 40's before moving to FL. Then zoloft again and finally cymbalta + lamictal   +K. Any one of them could have given it to me.

 

It is too soon to tell if it will go away or just diminish. I try not to think about it. It is better than diabetes or some of the other stuff long term AD use might have set me up for......

[westcoast]

Yes, I can successfully not think about it to.

 

BTW I had Librium in about 1979 in an effort to cure my then-excessive drinking. Didn't work but it sure was a comfy cozy feeling. I wouldn't touch that stuff today. It was almost like mania, I felt so FINE on it. (I eventually joined AA and didn't drink a drop for almost 30 years until Effexor WD mania threw me for a loop. Another casualty--my proud/humble sobriety.)

[johnson]

Hi CW5600,

 

When do you notice the tinnitus more, at night when it's quiet or during the day as well?

 

Have you ever tried listening to white noises or something else to help try and drown out your tinnitus?

 

I'm sure you've already researched it, but it might be worth a shot.

 

http://tinnitusmasking.net/tinnitus-masking-remedies.html

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Tell the truth, I hardly ever notice it but really, it is there all the time. I have never needed to mask it because I guess it just doesn't bother me. Very occasionally I get so good at tuning it out that suddenly something triggers me to think about it and I check and yep, it's still there.

 

Every once in awhile it gets softer and I think maybe it's going away but it hasn't yet. I guess it's my survivor's badge. A reminder of what those ******* drugs did to me.

 

(oops, wrong thread, this is not the cussin' one. You can tell where I've been hanging out....)

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Yes, I can successfully not think about it to.

 

BTW I had Librium in about 1979 in an effort to cure my then-excessive drinking. Didn't work but it sure was a comfy cozy feeling. I wouldn't touch that stuff today. It was almost like mania, I felt so FINE on it. (I eventually joined AA and didn't drink a drop for almost 30 years until Effexor WD mania threw me for a loop. Another casualty--my proud/humble sobriety.)

 

 

Oh no, that's awful, WC! (Give me a minute to calculate mine, let's see. June 1982 to Jan 2015 that's oh jeeze 33 years! Over half my age now!) I guess I was lucky because my drug did not do that to me, I got insomnia, misery and depression in wd instead. How weird that this stuff affects people differently.

 

You know, what matters is that you are climbing out from under all of that. I started reading your thread today because something caught my eye. Something you said - I know, it was the head drop post. I started reading your thread to find out more about your situation. I'll get back to it tomorrow but I am sure glad you told me about yourself. You know, it's funny, in all of this I have taken my sobriety for granted. I went on ADs at 6 years sober because something was still wrong. Little did I know what  a mistake THAT was.

[btdt]

 

Yes, I can successfully not think about it to.

 

BTW I had Librium in about 1979 in an effort to cure my then-excessive drinking. Didn't work but it sure was a comfy cozy feeling. I wouldn't touch that stuff today. It was almost like mania, I felt so FINE on it. (I eventually joined AA and didn't drink a drop for almost 30 years until Effexor WD mania threw me for a loop. Another casualty--my proud/humble sobriety.)

 

 

Oh no, that's awful, WC! (Give me a minute to calculate mine, let's see. June 1982 to Jan 2015 that's oh jeeze 33 years! Over half my age now!) I guess I was lucky because my drug did not do that to me, I got insomnia, misery and depression in wd instead. How weird that this stuff affects people differently.

 

You know, what matters is that you are climbing out from under all of that. I started reading your thread today because something caught my eye. Something you said - I know, it was the head drop post. I started reading your thread to find out more about your situation. I'll get back to it tomorrow but I am sure glad you told me about yourself. You know, it's funny, in all of this I have taken my sobriety for granted. I went on ADs at 6 years sober because something was still wrong. Little did I know what  a mistake THAT was.

 

head drop...I know one person other than me had that did you have it too...CW ?  think I am getting confused again...

[btdt]

I just looked up head drops

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonic_seizure

Atonic seizures (also called drop seizures, akinetic seizures or drop attacks), are a type of seizure that consist of a brief lapse in muscle tone that are caused by temporary alterations in brain function. 

I have not had a head drop since I quit taking Effexor.  

When I went to the doctor for head drops i was sent to a neurologist who set about testing me right away for MS and told me i would have to get off Effexor... i was a afraid I did not want to stop Effexor. 

I did not have a head drop after stopping even in the worst of cold turkey with many many horrid over the top symptoms had everything but not one head drop. 

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Well, maybe I confused you a bit. A long time ago you started reading my thread from the beginning and then commented when you read the post that said I went back to the psych because I was getting worse on the meds (I think I was on zoloft, something I had already tried years back) and I was panicking. I said it felt like someone was grabbing my cheeks and pulling my head down to my chest, it was a PULLING sensation and I was having difficulty overcoming it and keeping my head up. Like I was being curled in upon myself against my ability to stay upright.

 

It is not the same thing but at the time you mentioned it, I was very sick in wd and was not able to explain to you why I did not think it was the same thing as yours. As I think back on it, my 'medical mind' was afraid I was getting something like 'catatonia' and I freaked. (That is not likely to ever happen to someone, I had an overactive imagination.) It must have been a drug side effect or a reaction to the zoloft as it was increasing in dose. You often get really weird side effects from starting on psych drugs which go away the longer you have been on them. Yeah, they last until you have been on them long enough TO BECOME NUMB TO EVERYTHING IN YOUR WHOLE FREAKING LIFE.

 

The doc whipped out a script for cymbalta, it was new on the market and he had to give me something, anything. No one believes it when I say I started to feel a 'lightening' in my head within 6 hours of taking it. No wonder, it alters 2 neurotransmitters (norepinephrine is the 2nd one), something I had never had before.

 

Btdt, the thing you are referring to above is different, I did not have a whole body brief lapse in muscle tone as it describes. But is that what you had?

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I made a post recently that I thought I was getting a sty (stye) and I cannot find it. The modern day search engines all suck, they return too many irrelevant results and never want to search for the 'exact phrase'.

 

Anyway, it might not be a sty. It has the feeling of a prodrome of a herpes or shingles attack. The only shingles attack I ever had involved my eye (just inside the lower lid), my face, and inside my mouth and nose. What shocked me is that when I went to the doc to see what it was (dumb me, I used to be a nurse???) he gave me a script for a narcotic. It was then I realized these things are really painful and I hadn't thought it particularly was. That is what makes me think I have a 'high' pain tolerance. That bout of the shingles was an eye opener. Just the slight feelings of my bedcovers on my cheek was very painful and I did end up taking a few of the pills when I had to. I was still on ADs at the time.

 

Sure hope it is not that. Trying not to touch it. Externally I can't see anything yet.