Citalopram - POSITIVE STORIES ONLY PLEASE :-) xxx

[Alicia44]

Hi All
I've recently been prescribed 10mg citalopram for anxiety.
I, like many others I guess, was terrified of the side effects! I was on prozac years ago and it was GRIM at first!!!
Anyway, I decided to bite the bullet, as I am off work anyway at the moment. I can honestly say that the first 5 days taking them, I've felt the best I have felt in ages. HOWEVER , today, on day 6 I have felt an underlying anxious feeling most of the day. Could this be the dreaded side effects? I am hoping its just a blip and that its just one of my normal anxious days, not the meds! I am
also really struggling with sleep. I’m so tired when I go to bed but then lay awake until the early hours! I should add that I’ve recently had surgery and was out of it on oral morphine and tramadol for a while. This knocked me out and I was sleeping 13 hours at a time! So maybe my body is trying to adjust? Please could anyone reassure me, maybe that they felt like this in the early days of citalopram and that it WILL get better?! I have been so positive and hopeful about these meds and don't want today to ruin that! THANKS in advance x

I got on really well with Citalopram, ended up in hospital due to an adverse reaction to fluoxetine though.
One of my children is on Sertraline and it's been really good too. The psychiatrist who prescribed it (this is not looking like a good reflection of my parenting) said that, anecdotally, adverse side effects run in families.

All considered, you're probably in the shit stage of morphine withdrawal.

Thanks for the reply. Did you get side effects at first on citalopram? Ie sleeplessness, heightened anxiety? If so, how long did they last? I'm sure I'm nowhere near as bad as I was when I went on fluoxetine, that was hell. I'm still managing to function, go out etc but I just feel that anxious feeling!

You're right though...my body has been full of morphine and tramadol, and probably became used to that making me sleep like a dead thing!!

No, none. But I was told that many doctors favour Sertraline over Citalopram now so it migt be worth a try. DC has had no problems with it.

I'm 7 days in now on citalopram, I think I'll bear with it and hopefully things will settle down. I have many friends and family members on it and they all have positive experiences with it so fingers crossed xx

I struggled too at first but it did get better for me. It took a while for things to settle down - I got the same symptoms as you and lay awake at night for hours getting really anxious about not sleeping! In the end I was increased to 20mg but I wanted to give you some reassurance that it can get better, it can just take longer for some people. Keep at it and fingers crossed you see an improvement soon

It does get better - took me about 2 weeks to feel better on them.

I was a long term tramadol user alongside citalopram - it probably is a side effect of you coming off of them. Did you stop the tramadol completely or did you ease yourself off them? How long was you taking them for?

I’m on day 7 too. I take 20mg and take it at night. So far I’ve had a headache (constant), dry mouth, sickly feeling in the mornings. But I’ve slept ok. Felt slightly drowsiness in the day. But overall I’ve felt better and less anxious.
Today though I’ve felt really tired, I’ve actually slept most of the day. And I’ve felt more anxious, I don’t know if that’s side effects or if it’s just over an incident that happened today.

Thanks for the replies and the reassurance. I was only on tramadol and morphine for approx 10 days but my doctor said my body would have become used to being knocked out at night. So I guess I may still be adjusting. I cut down by 50% each day then tapered them off.

I'm over a week on the citalopram now so hopefully I'll start to feel some benefits in the next week. The doc said I may need to increase to 20mg but I'm terrified of side effects becoming worse. I'm hoping 10mg does the trick. Thanks again all

Duvetday - I would imagine you feeling more anxious would be because of something that happened. Try not to focus on it (says me!), I am sure it will pass