Citalopram withdrawal

[messange]

Hi
I know this has been discussed lots before on here but I cannot find anything about anyone experiencing problems months later. I am going through a really bad patch of almost nervous exhaustion - crying uncontrollable (for ages), anger, inablility to be around my children and relax, depression etc - about 2 months or more after stopping. I had the initial withdrawal after a few days of headaches, dizzy spells etc which stopped and I felt OK. Now I don't know if it is withdrawal still or something else? Has anyone else experienced this?

[Chocattack]

Sorry no experience of this. How quickly did you come off citalopram? What dose were you taking and for how long before tapering off? I have read on here that coming off too fast may cause withdrawal symptoms.

[MirandaWest]

When I came off ADs too quickly I was OK ish at the time but then a few months later was back into depression again which was rather annoying. So the next time I did it really slowly - waited until I was "fine" on the ADs for about 9 months maybe and then reduced over about 18 months to 2 years. Came off them nearly 3 years ago and so far have been OK, despite stuff happening which I would have imagined would have affected me in a worse depression way than it has. I also found having CBT (while still on ADs but when in a stable mental state) really helped both at the time and now.

Hope this is a blip for you but if not there is no shame in taking ADs again if it turns out that is what you need.

[strawberry17]

Yes this happened to me, and something I know a lot about. If you click into my profile you'll see my web site/blog on this very subject. You probably came off too fast and by the alternate day method, this doesn't work for many many people and you end up back at square one, withdrawals can feel a lot like the original depression/anxiety which is very confusing. I was/am very sensitive to withdrawal and couldn't get off sertraline, I am currently nearing the end of a 4+ year taper off liquid Prozac. These drugs can be extremely tricky and a bugger to get off and it can take a huge amount of self discipline to do it slowly.
So, you may need to consider going back on the medication, stabilizing yourself, and then tapering very very slowly, if you can get liquid version of your medication this will enable you to do this very slowly. Anyway, my web site has lots of info in the pages on the side about how to withdraw.

[strawberry17]

Hope you find these useful:


Drug Withdrawal Why Taper by 10%



Mind Making Sense of Coming off Pysychiatric Drugs

My website/FB Page

[TheGruffalosbitch]

Strawberry17 knows what she's talking about x