Cymbalta Withdrawal Forums + Bruxism

While I was doing research for my latest medication profile, I stumbled upon cymbaltawithdrawal.com, a website started by someone who presumably went through the trials of Cymbalta withdrawal and the associated SSRI/SNRI discontinuation syndrome. It’s an open forum for other people who are going through the same experience, and people are free to discuss what’s going on for them during the withdrawal period. This website is a bit of a grim view into the future for me; if Cymbalta turns out to be just like all the other drugs I’ve tried (failures), then one day I’ll have to stop taking it and will probably suffer from the discontinuation syndrome. However, my pharmacist told me that Cymbalta withdrawal is apparently not as bad as Effexor (Venlafaxine) withdrawal, which I have also been through. If she’s right, then I think I should be able to manage.

Bruxism. Bruxism started becoming an issue for me about two months ago. I first started noticing jaw pain during the day, as though my mouth was constantly working throughout the night. Also when my mother came to check on me, she could hear my jaw creaking while I was asleep. Then I started to notice jaw clenching and tooth grinding during the day – first only a little bit, then more and more until I was constantly clenching unless I made a concerted effort not to. Even then, I would only last about three to five seconds before my jaw would clench again. As a result of all this clenching, I get a lot of pain in my jaw, and I assume I’m doing damage to my teeth, but I haven’t seen a dentist in years. That’s on my list of things to do. I already take the dietary supplements recommended for people with bruxism – Pantothenic Acid, Magnesium, and Calcium – but they don’t appear to be helping.

There are a number of things that could be contributing to my bruxism:

• Smoking
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Insomnia
• Consumption of caffeine
• High levels of stress and anxiety
• Cymbalta (Duloxetine)
• Dexedrine (Dextroamphetamine)
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Any or all of those things could be impacting upon my bruxism, but it’s nigh impossible to tell exactly which one it is. On a hunch, my psychiatrist advised me to lower my dose of Dexedrine to see if that would affect the bruxism, but even after a week of being Dexedrine-free I was still bruxing heavily. To keep from grinding my teeth all day long, I try to bite my lip or tongue when I notice I’m bruxing, but I feel like it makes me look sort of funny. Some people, including my mother, a friend, and my psychiatrist, have mentioned that I visibly appear to be chewing or otherwise moving my jaw around constantly whenever I’m not speaking. It makes me very self-conscious about being out in public.

I’ve heard about people using benzodiazepines to relieve bruxism, but I’m not too keen on going back to those if I can help it. I don’t think my psychiatrist would be down for that either. Another totally extreme option is Botox – actually freezing the muscles that are doing the bruxing – but there’s no way I’m going to willingly allow someone to paralyze parts of my face.