Posted by chujoe on May 31, 2010, at 11:15:01
We often talk here on Pb about our symptoms and the drugs that either work or don't work against them, so I though it would be appropriate to try to describe a symptom I had during the height of my anxiety crisis, which lasted the better part of a year and only faded away a couple of months ago when I started taking Cymbalta. I tried describing it to my therapist and to the NP who manages my meds, but neither of them seemed to understand what I was talking about, though they are both smart and sympathetic. The post about brain zaps last week reminded me of it & though it sounds sort of innocuous when described in language, it was one of the things that I found most frightening when it was happening.
So: Often, especially if I was turning or reaching for something like a door knob, I would have the physical and mental sensation of a sort of power surge in my consciousness, a wave of darkness a second or so long that sometimes felt like losing my balance (though I never fell down). It felt sort of like a mini-panic attack that passed quickly, a little spurt of adrenalin & maybe that's what it was, but it also felt like a brief forgetting, a disorientation, a loss of self almost. After it was over I'd find my self finishing the gesture I had begun when it started. Sometimes it happened only occasionally, but it could repeat itself every few seconds if I was doing something like making dinner. The worst of it was that it made my consciousness discontinuous & I had the feeling that I had to work desperately hard to hang on to what I was doing.
The symptom faded away as I worked my Cymbalta dose up from 30 mg to 90 mg over the course of a month. I haven't had it in a month or so, which is a great relief. I'd be interested to know if this is similar to symptoms others have experienced & what they think is going on.
poster:chujoe
thread:949635
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100524/msgs/949635.html