Please tell me your positive experiences about taking Citalopram

[CrazyBabies]

Hi there, this is my second thread here, so please bear with me. I was diagnosed with depression/anxiety on Monday and have just started taking Citalopram. I am very nervous and anxious so was hoping you could tell me how its been for you - your journey. I am having problems with sleeping and racing heart, and today feel crap! Yesterday felt great!! Last night I ended up taking my tablet at 10.30 pm rather than 8.30pm (ish), as I had to drive my sons friends home, and couldn't take the tablet until after driving.
Please tell me the different stages you went through - really need some positive stories.

Hello, I started on citalopram last year. I started on 10 mg, and took it in the morning, as I found it disturbed by sleep if i took it at night. I had about a week and a half of feeling rubbish on it, a kind of unsettled nauseous feeling in my stomach and some awful panicky dreams and frantic feelings in the middle of the night. At one point I though I was going to stop taking them, but then it stopped and they kicked in.

I have found them brilliant, I double my dose when I am starting to feel feelings of being overwhelmed, and also when i get pmt (which causes me to get really down). But I have never had to have more than 20mg.

Before i took them, i was getting extremely down, not wanting to see friends, being extremely short tempered with our dcs, and somedays just felt so overwhelmed by everything that I just couldn't get through even the most mundane tasks. All that has gone, and i just get on with stuff. My main worry was that i would feel like a different me, or would seem different to other people, but I feel the same, and dh assures me i am the same. I also didn't want to stop feeling things, but I still cry and feel worried and sad, but those feelings don't engulf me and stop me functioning.

Hope you get on ok with them. If you don't, ask your dr about alternatives, i had a friend who really didn't get on with them, and switched to another ad which suited her much better.

Thanks so much hazeyjane. Sounds like things have worked out really well for you. I hadn't realised how low I had become until I spoke to my doctor on Monday as I had been incredibly depressed with pmt, v bad, then bit better rest of month. Have so much going in in my life, it just came to a point where some thing needed to be done. Luckily dh has been so supportive.

I've taken it 3 times when I've been depressed/had major upheaval in my life. I found it better if I took it in the morning personally. It was very effective for me in helping to get on top of my anxiety - my depression was related to prolonged periods of anxiety. The main side effect was a hand tremor but I learned to live with that and it settled. No one anti-depressant suits everyone but give it time to see how it suits you. Are you due to go back to your GP after a month? And have you been referred for counselling?

Hello, last Monday I was also diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and was prescribed diazipam 2mg and citalopram 20mg, and apart from an ifffy tummy (I am glad I was indoors iyswim) I am starting to feel better my head is a lot clearer.

I take it in the morning and when the anxiety is too much I take one diazipam. I feel as though I can start to tackle why I am so anxious.

Apparently it is the first couple of weeks that are bad. Whilst your body gets used to it.

Just give it a little time and the symptoms should lessen and dissapear. I was very lucky and didn't have any symptoms at all.

It definitely took the edge off when times were tough. I no longer need it.

Good luck and I hope you start to feel better soon.

I took it for about a year and stopped about a year ago. I felt like a changed (for the better) person within about 48 hours. I thought it must just have been a placebo effect but I found a report of some research that showed for anxiety symptoms it can work that fast. Things that seemed intolerable just didn't matter so much anymore. It gave me back the resiliance a prolongued period of huge stress had worn down to nothing.

For the right person with the right symptoms it seems like a wonder drug to me. I had no trouble coming off it gradually and now things are better for me all round, but if I start to feel down at least I can remember going from crying in the street to wanting to sing! (That really high feeling didn't last too long otherwise I'd have been carted off).

I had a week of feeling sick and shakey but after that things gradually improved. Started on 20mg and my doctor increased that gradually to where I am now on 40mg. The difference in me is amazing. It has become clear that I have been depressed to a degree since having ds1 8 years ago, despite never feeling "depressed" (even when diagnosed I thought it was a mistake!) I am so much more confident and relaxed. I enjoy day to day life. I now have hobbies and interests - for example since taking citalopram I have: taken up running and the gym, started a PGCE, lost 4 stone, became a parent governor, made new friends, got a puppy etc etc- all things that I now consider the fun parts of life.

I can't believe how much of my life I wasted feeling crappy! I am definitely a positive story :o

I've taken it a couple of times over the last ten years and it took the edge off the despair that I felt, which made me calmer and happier so that I could come off it and face life again.

I wouldn't hesitate to go back on it if I felt myself slipping into the black hole again.

Wow! thank you all for your comments. It makes me feel better to hear all your stories. I seem to be getting a lot of symptoms, but mentally I can feel that things are def improving.
My dh took it quite a few years ago with no symptoms - lucky him.

I've been on it for four years. The first three weeks were 'interesting' - I felt drunk all the time and I wouldn't even drive. Teeth grinding happened for a couple of years. I went up from 20mg to 40mg then 60mg, but I have been back on 20mg for a couple of year and now it is fine. I don't want to stop taking it. It saved my life.