Coming off citalopram/SSRIs - anyone want to join me?

[Arcadia]

This will be embarrassing if I get no takers but here goes!

I have been hugely helped by this board since I had my DD (now 4), I have some lovely people and find it the 'safest' place on mumsnet which can get a bit brutal elsewhere!

To cut a long story short I have been on citalopram for almost exactly a year. I had some issues that all came together and a lot of those external issues have now resolved itself. I have however had problems with anxiety all my life on and off but not taken medication before now.

After some fairly minor side effects I settled on the 20mg and it has been great to be able to cope with stuffs and have an even mood but now feel ready to start coming off.

After doing some reading am planning on doing it from January taking about three months over it. Am also seeing GP tomorrow but have heard they tend to be a bit less cautious so to do it slower than they advise.

Anyone else looking forward to coming off in the new year to be off them by the spring/summer when hopefully our moods will hold up?!

Also any advice from those who have gone through it gratefully received.

I came off 100mg sertraline from July to Sept this year, last pill 21st Sept.

Did 75mg for three weeks, then 50 for about six, then 25mg until eventually stopping. The bit on 25mg and after was a little tough but that was also because I had just started back to work.

Feel much better off them if totally honest.

I feel much better on a reduced dose too

(MangerMinor here, have reverted to non-Xmas name!) - Well I'm now two weeks on from reducing from 20mg to 10mg, and I'm finally feeling better, not so tired and the dizziness has passed. I've been under the weather with mouth ulcers and sore throat, but pretty sure that's a separate thing. Hope you've all been managing ok.

madasa it sounds like your GP was a bit gung-ho about it. That is why I think, better to speak to those who have done it / are doing it. I once had a GP swear to me that zopiclone was completely non- addictive .

I am a bit impatient to start the cutting down now but really feel I should speak to my GP first just to do it properly, even though I probably won't take her advice re dosage for reasons given above!

Welldone Dorrisbuttons that is a big achievement. Great to have some sun too, I have managed to get out for a good walk nearly every day over Christmas.

That sounds good Manic sounds like you are generally run down rather than side effects. I usually get like that by Christmas time but seem to avoided it this year.

I am reading 'Cracked: Why Psychiatry Does More Harm Than Good' and I think I will never take them again tbh unless suicidal. The more I've looked into it and reflected I don't think they are half the wonder drug I once believed. I am glad they are there to take the edge off especially for anyone in torment but when I look back over the whole course of my depression right back to teen years when I wandered the streets with pills in my pockets and sporadically overdosed on pain meds I'm just not sure ADs actually made an appreciable difference that wasn't just about flattening the intensity. ...

I sort of regret taking them when ds2 was so little because I felt so little.. before he was born I was in torment but I could feel. I have found it such a relief to have real feelings of proper love and fun again even though I hurt and worry more too. I don't know if it was like this for anyone else but I just wouldn't want to experience that emotional blunting again unless I was afraid for my life. Very relieved to be off.

working9while5 I feel the same.
Since first being prescribed an SSRI in October 2011 I've done a huge amount of reading and research into them and I never, ever want to take one again. In fact I know now that the antid hindered me and gave me horrific side effects that GPs just don't know about.
After all, nobody knows how they work! Serotonin is mostly created in the gut, not the brain.

Anyway, I was so scared of withdrawal, given my awful reaction to starting them, that I began cutting 10mgs Escitalopram in half way back in July.
Cut the 5mgs in half in September and since the start of December have been cutting a 2.5mg in half. I'm taking a sliver at the moment!

I found going from 10 to 5 a bit tough for a few days, my mood plummeted. It did settled within a week or so.

Now the mood is fine but I feel queasy a lot, like pregnancy nausea. Very vivid dreams too.

I need and want to stop completely but a little afraid of what will happen. I do know though that it'll be just withdrawal symptoms and won't confuse it with a resurgence of depression or anxiety.

I am currently on 10 Citalopram having come down from 40 in the past two years, I think I've been on 10 for the last 4 - 6 months and I'm trying to decide if I should come off it completely. I'm due to see my GP for a review in February.

I'm thinking about coming off of it as I feel that even such a small dose is somehow dulling my feelings although on the other hand it could also be SAD because of the dark days. My GP thinks I have an anxious personality rather than an anxiety disorder as such and at first it really helped, is it a sign that you no longer need it if you feel it is holding you back?

It took me a long time to admit that I needed something stronger than the St Johns Wort I was taking (with my GP's knowledge) but I wonder if these things are finite?

I lost my job (I worked for a local authority) because the way I was treated by them over an RSI injury and a miscarriage caused a breakdown. I think they wanted to get rid of me without paying redundancy as I had been there a long time and they thought that I wouldn't protest because I was ill and the reason I think this is that I was prepared to take them to an industrial tribunal but at the 11th hour they offered a settlement which I accepted on the advice of my solicitor as it was very close to what I would have got in redundancy (I also got some equipment that was purchased for my RSI and a reference).

The other reason I am thinking of coming off it is that my libido is non existent and I would like to regain that if possible although it is possible that it is my age that is affecting that! (I'm 47). I thought that coming down to 10 might help this but it seems it hasn't.

I need to seriously look for work and I wondered if coming off it might help me focus my mind on that as well, I just feel as though my mind is full of cotton wool at the moment.

Have been taking 15 mg down from 20mg since christmas day.
Not a massive reduction I admit but I dont appear to be having any side effects and as pp have mentioned, slowly is the best way.
Happy New Year to you all

Well done maudpringle so you have suffered no ill effects yet
that's great!

Hi natasha sorry to hear what you have been through. Getting down to 10mg is a real achievement. I am feeling tired and 'woolly' and don't Know if that is winter or the citalopram.

I am not an expert but don't think your libido should be dropping due to age at 47!

Thank you Arcadia.

I think it might be the winter because I do suffer with SAD when the days are dull and dark.

Well I did think that 47 was a bit young! I don't think I've even entered the perimenopause yet as I don't have any other symptoms apart from the libido one and my periods are still as regular as they always have been. I think I will have to ask my GP when I see him for my review as I think he mentioned there was a hormone test they could do. I suppose it could be low iron levels which I've had in the past and perhaps the Citalopram is just the 'icing on the cake' as it were contributing to but not causing this symptom.

I wonder if Citalopram is so effective at treating the symptoms it damps everything down to the extent that all 'normal' feeling goes like the sedatives that are sometimes referred to as 'chemical coshs'.

I've never sought help/advice from an online group before but it seems that a lot of posters have remarkably similar symptoms with this drug so it seems that even if we feel alone when dealing with it we aren't actually.

I don't know about the damping down. I still get positive feelings. When bad things happen I am just able to think 'oh well' and let it go, after initially feeling pissed off. I think I am more like a 'normal' person on citalopram than I am usually, in that I react to things a bit less strongly.

I just feel an urge to get myself off them now because the things that were stressing me out when I went on them are no longer issues, my life is a lot more settled now. However I now worry about my ability to deal with stress without them which is silly because I managed to do so for 38 years, and through some much rougher times than when I went on them.

Am just putting a bit of a 'plan' in place for the next few months to ensure I stay on good form.

I think I know what you mean about positive feelings Arcadia, when I was on the higher dose I felt more 'flat' so I suppose more normal feelings are coming back on the lower dose. I suppose the current feelings of 'flatness' are perhaps due to the SAD because of the weather and lack of sunlight then which will hopefully change when there is more sunlight! This was originally why I was taking St John's Wort and it worked for quite a while but then the miscarriage, ill health and everything at work happened and I suppose it just wasn't enough and I needed something a bit stronger to cope. Still don't seem to be able to cry though but I think previous posters have mentioned this symptom so perhaps it is not an uncommon one.

Spoke to my GP and am now going to start cutting down, am starting by taking 10mg every three days, with 20mg on the other days, until it work down to alternate days, then do 10mg on two days and 20mg every three days, until I am down to 10 and so on.

I wanted to do 15s but when I got the 10mg tablets they are tiny and I can't really cut them in half.

It sounds silly but I am looking forward to having a good cry soon!

How is everyone else doing?

I think I'm still the same Arcadia. I am due to see my GP for a medication review around about February time so will discuss the way forward then, hopefully the weather will be improving so my SAD won't be getting me down when I am trying to move forward.

I haven't had a very encouraging start with cutting the dose. I am feeling a bit odd; a bit 'unreal' at times (not particularly unpleasant though), a bit irritable and quite mood swingy. I didn't think I would have any symptoms from taking 10mg every three days as I have missed the odd dose completely before without any ill effect. I also woke at 2am feeling a bit panicky last night, which hasn't happened for ages.
Hard to know if it is psychological?
Anyway I am definitely going to take it slowly.