I stopped taking my psychiatric medications (buspar, concerta, cymbalta) in mid-Oct 2022. Cold Turkey- I was not supposed to do this. Then two weeks later I applied , three doses of topical fin. That’s when all the problems started, but people around me are saying it could have also been from abruptly stopping all meds. Did I do this to myself or is it PFS?
I should add that my symptoms include penile atrophy. I don’t think stopping meds cold Turkey can do that, right? It has to be attributable to fin I’m thinking?
We don’t really know if acutely stopping these drugs or tapering off of them makes any difference in the occurrence or severity of the symptoms. There’s accounts from people developing the symptoms while still taking the drug while some only develop the symptoms after quitting. I would say most people I know quit the drug cold turkey, and only a few tapered off.
The anecdotal reports on this vary wildly it’s hard to make sense of it or to establish any exact patterns without meticulous and more specified research into the topic.
Either way there’s no point in blaming yourself. You took certain drugs that you were told would have certain effects and were told had a certain safety profile. There’s little to no accurate information to be found on these drugs, on the effects of tapering vs. not tapering. For regular consumers, it’s almost impossible to inform yourself accurately on any of this.