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Cymbalta / ADs and repetitive hand motions

Posted by Galen on August 20, 2005, at 19:38:32

My ex-husband (father of my child) has been on antidepressants for more than a decade. He had great success with Serzone, but it pooped out after a while. He then started taking another AD (like Serzone, but I can't remember the name). About two years ago, he started making unconscious hand motions -- flexing his hands rhythmically, tapping his hands, and most often repetitively rubbing his thumb across his fingers. It seemed a little idiosyncratic, but he clearly enjoyed doing it.

Four months ago he had a concussion, which caused a lot of problems: anxiety, depression, a change in personality for a while. His shrink put him on Cymbalta. Since then his hands are in near-constant motion. It is not involuntary -- he can stop the motions if he wants to. However, the motions seem to be initiated unconsciously: when he drives, reads, watches TV, or sits down for a minute the thumb-finger rubbing and tapping and hand flexing start right up. I've known the man for 20 years and have never particularly noticed him speaking with his hands, but now, his speech is also accompanied by a lot of (sort of unusual) hand motion.

Any idea what this is? I've browsed the Web and come across terms like stereotypies, tics, akathisia, athetosis -- can't say I really understand these terms, but none of them exactly fit the bill (except probably stereotypies). The motions seem odd to me and I keep hoping my exes' shrink will notice, but the shrink hasn't known him long and it's likely my ex controls his hands more in a focused interview. The ex does not view his hand motions as a problem, but I'm not sure he realizes how much he does it.

And maybe it isn't a problem, though it seems to me Cymbalta has made this habit(?) much worse. What I'm really wondering is whether this is a symptom of some kind of neurologic condition.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any thoughts on what it might be?


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poster:Galen thread:544502
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050816/msgs/544502.html