Citalopram : About to start taking it - Experiences please?

[livingbythesea]

Hi. I'm 41 and have today been prescribed 10mg Citalpram. Haven't taken this anti-d before and would very much appreciate anyone's experiences. Have previously found it hard to go on and come off anti-d's due to heightened symptoms. Does it help to build up the dose gradually by halving the pills, or taking every other day?

thank u lucyellensmum, im off to the docs in a bit, see wat he suggests, today i cut down a bit more and dont feel quite so bad,iv had these a couple of yrs ago and got on fine,no side effects at all! i didnt have any this time until id been taking 10mg for a few days then bam,i had a huge pa.and gp put me on 2mg valium wich helped but wen i stopped them it came bak not as bad,i have a feeling he will persuade me to giv them another week, i just dnt know wat to do...this site has helped no end tho

lollipops, are you still on the valium? The only reason i ask this is because, many years ago, a friend of mine used to take a very low dose of valium. My cat died and i was distraught, stupidly, she gave me one of her tablets and i promise you, i had the worse panic attack of my life, i thought there were monsters swirling around in the wind trying to get me. Maybe it could be the valium that is causing the panic attacks. Im only speaking from experience of my stupidity taking someone elses tablets but that is how they affected me at the time.

We are a messed up bunch aren't we! But really, when you think about it, we are the strong ones, we are the ones saying, enough of this shit, we need some help.

HI, I've just been described this as well. I've had lots of stress at work, moving house - too many balls to juggle & I'm just not coping. Although I'm not depressed, I'm snappy, quick tempered & irritable.

SO, started 20 mg on Monday - felt woolly headed on Tuesday, had a terrible headache all last night & this am (paracetomol got rid of it) & I can really relate to the floured mouth !

I'm looking forward to feeling level headed, roll on 2 weeks time...

lucyellensmum hi,i took the vaillium about 5 days after starting citilapram coz my panic attacks had gotten so bad, i took them 4 a few days but like you they made me feel worse,never again...lol. i went to gp lastnite, he said i may not need them ffs!and has told me to lay off them for 4 days and see how i feel (btw i should have said, i was given cit for panic attacks), then if i feel bad i should take 5mg in morning and 5mg in the eves,so that im getting the 10mg albeit separatly, like u said to me, 5mg wont do anything good,but he did say that it could still cause panic attacks to worsen, but i dnt know,sometimes i think they say watever just to shut u up...lmao. il c how i feel today and tomorrow, yeh and ur right we r the strong ones,it takes a hell of a lot for people who think they r going nuts to actually talk to someone else about how they feel,and im a little luckier than a lot on here as my kids are grown up now, but i do know wat it feels like to hav young ones and feel shit,its very difficult....ur a star thx so much,where u from anyway?

Me? i'm from the happy place I'm from Kent.

I have one daughter aged 17 and one aged 2

Hi there . I have just returned from the docs and he has given me escitalopram ,very similar I think . Pleasetell me they will help . I am desparate

flossie, i am sorry you are feeling so shitty just now. I can only speak from my own experience - i am on citolopram, only been on them 9 days - THEY WORK!!!!

Your drug is in the same family, and i think i read on here, slightly more expensive, less side effects, i could be mistaken. But these SSRIs work by indirectly boosting the amount of seratonin our brains can utilise. Apparently when we feel shitty our seratonin levels drop, i am not entirely sure if it is cause or effect in some people, but depressed people have been shown to be low in seratonin. So if the drugs can boost the seratonin then it can boost the level of calm, it seems to work for me and i was sooooo sceptical. Thought i wasnt depressed, thought i would have terrible side effects, i basically was terrified every morning. Now i still feel a little nervous but the "im going to die" feeling has left me and allowed me to live my life. I now realise just now long i have been like this. My doctor suggested i had PND after the birth of my baby, i poo poo'd it as i had just lost my father, was sick with gall stones, was trying against a tight time scale to write my phd and i thought, well you're bound to feel bad, bla bla bla... the thing is, the feeling bad never stopped, it just got worse, my HV made me do a questionaire and told me i was clinically depressed and she would come and see me the next week, well that was two years ago and there has been no mention of it from her since! So my advice, take the tablets, dont be scared, you may have side effects, but it is only supposed to last for a short time. This nearly put me off but the wonderful MN network provided the support and encouragement that these would work for me, so thanks again everyone.

oh yeh nice place i have family there,im in suffolk 3 boys 25 17 and 10. havnt took a pill 2day! i feel 10 times better, bit shaky and light headed for a few hrs, but that has almost gone now, not that im expecting that to be the end of it, im guessing the citilopram just wasnt for me this time, even though the first time i had it i had no probs at all, infact i had told a couple of friends to go for them,i do believe they are great if they work for you, evry 1s different i spose,anyway il c where the next few days take me.x

I will start to takethem ,but it will be from Sunday as I have stupidly arranged for 14 people to come over on Saturday as I have always done summer Tapas and it got delayed cos of all the family disasters this year.
I feel I am in melt down already so I will be ready for the pill on sunday .
Hopefully I will get on fine, time will tell

Well here I am on day 2 of citalopram.... difficult to know whether there are any side effects yet, as I've been feeling so physically rough with the depression anyway. I've noticed my mouth has been very dry, also I woke up about 4 am and was a bit 'twitchy' and restless. But feeling ok now. I'm so relieved to find this thread - maybe that sounds strange but having just started on ADs it's reassuring to hear others stories and to realise other people have felt like me.

Had my counselling assesment today,it would seem that i am officially barking mad!!!! wooohooo!

Feeling so angry just now - it has like the past two years of my life have been stolen by depression and anxiety and im determined to fight like a she cat to get my life back. If not for me (i hardly deserve it considering what i have put my family through) but for my DP and my lovely children, they deserve the old me - i think she was kind of fun, or so i'm told.

I think the counseller was a bit anti AD but i told her in no uncertain terms that she would have to fight me with a very big stick to take them away as at least now i can be objective about my problems. I have to say though, i was impressed, i was dreading it and thought that it would be an hour of self pity and her saying oh, you poor thing, but havent you done well, bla bla bla, which is what i got from my doddery old HV, who left me clinically depressed last year with no help whatsoever. She was very straight talking and said i was moderately to severely clinically depressed, and bordering on the line of the counselling not being a enough . But she said that as the citilopram (wonder drug of the fecking century if you ask me! which is odd as last week i thought they were the devil's smarties) seem to be able to stabalise me enough to benifit we will give it a try, three month waiting list though!!! arrrrghhh, oh well, thats the NHS for you yeah yeah, i know i should be grateful for whatever they can offer.

I'll shut up now, hmmm, perhaps i should start a blog thing to rant on, but i dont know how , and besides, you lot are a great support so im sure you dont mind me whittering on.

I'm off out tomorrow night, but no alcohol that is going to be tough!!!

Lucyellensmum I can relate so much to all that you have said. I also was really anti AD's before I started with the citalopram, but now you couldn't force them away from me! It is amazing how a little pill can give you back yourself.

To those of you who are sceptical, give them a try. I think the depression can make you feel so negative that you have all these fears but once the pills start working you find yourself wondering why it was all so hard to decide. I still have a lot of counselling ahead of me, but as lucyellensmum has said it is easier to face now.

I swear by citalopram. When I first took it a few years back I felt a bit weird at first, strange shaking brain feelings etc...
This time round feel great and it's helped me no end.

I drink on it does anyone else? I'm on 20mg and have never had a bad effect from a few glasses.

ulyses - LOL at the shaky brain feeling. Me, i felt like that BEFORE i started taking it

Hi again all! Three weeks in on citalopram 20 mg and feel my old self. No side effects now really. sadly my appreciation of chocolate has returned! (sad for my figure!)
I tried a few drinks a week ago when out for a mates birthday and by about 11.30 pm felt really depressed and paranoid and couldn't wait to get away. This continued for most of the day after too. apparently alcohol can cancel out the benefit of the AD as it is a depressant, so beware those of you taking this for depression.I will not be trying alcohol in the near future! my sister is on cipralex which is v similar drug, but for anxiety, and she can drink alcohol and feels fine.

I have just stared cipralex and I have a strange feeling in my head ,like I have got up to quick or my ears are blocked from a long flight.
Also my pupils seem huge and its a cloudy day here
Hopeful it will calm down over the next few days

hi again, on day seven now and side effects are diminishing, just slight occasional nausea and all the twitching has stopped thankfully. starting to feel calmer inside, anger and anxiety about problems at home definately easier to cope with and its still early days so my feelings about dh are still all over the place. so i think it may be the tablets. but how do you really know? am hoping that in another week i will just 'know' that i am getting back to my old self. but really do feel i need them to work, as have three children aged 4 and under and sessions with Relate coming up, lots to cope with and need to be clear headed. btw, any experiences of sexual problems- sorry if TMI but I am trying to rebuild my marraige and wondering if loss of interest is purely down to the affair/ trust issues or could it partly be the tablets> any ideas?

mouli, it could be the tablets, it could be the affair, it could be both. It does say in the blurb that comes with the pills that a common side effect is a lack of labido, however it also quotes increased labido as an uncommon side effect. So, who knows.

I really admire that you are giving it a go with DH, it takes alot to recover from that sort of thing, but if you love each other it will be worth it and you can both be happy again. I have found that the citilopram have halped me analyse my problems more objectively,only two weeks in so lets wait and see, so hopefully will provide the strength to work them through. Much the same for you i suspsect.

thanks for that, we can get through this can't we!

we/you can, but i suspect it wont be easy, for any of us but then nothing worthwhile ever is.

thats true, but things are really looking up with dh. we both so want to try to make it work, realise what we could have lost. without the ad tablets i was finding it hard to think about anything else in my life besides what he has done. the tablets seem to have made me feel calm inside, (the doctor mainly prescribed them for my anxiety and sleeplessness). i need time to think about what i really want out of my relationship, and a calm state of mind is essential to think rationally . I really do feel heaps better and I was so sceptical about taking them. such a lot of changes have taken place in my life over the past few years; had a baby, gave up a good teaching job with a house, moved to a new area and then had twins- the wheel was bound to come off sometime- particularly as I am a bit of a perfectionist. (not perfect though!!)anyway, enough of all that, off to flop in front of the telly now, night all xxx

mouili, i admire your spirit, with that attitude you can do ANYTHING you want to. And im quite about DH. My DP and i seem to be sinking further into the mire

As you can see, today is not one of my better ones.

oh dear, whats up today then? want to talk about it?

i think i'm just having a bad day (had some pretty disturbing thoughts, but i think that was because i took my tablets late but have shook my head enough for the thoughts to fall out of my ears ).

DP and i have been going through a rough patch, which i think is pretty much 70% my fault and 20% down to financial problems and 10% because he is trying to start a business and im not helping him when i really should be. Since starting on the tablets i have been really "well behaved" and we have been getting on fine. Then last night he comes home and we end up having an almighty row because i didn't agree with something he was doing work wise. It was my fault it escalated though because once i get my teeth into something i am like a rotweiller with a bone (and i know what they are like having dealt with a rottie with behavioural issues - grrrr) and i wont leave it alone and i will just push and push and push. So, last night it ends up with the remote control in peices and dinner in the bin. So, feel pretty shit today. We have made it up, he said it was his fault but it was so patently down to me and i really hate myself. I am so clearly pushing away the only man (apart from my dad) who has ever been decent to me. We have been together 15 years and up until recently we have had a charmed relationship, you know, still loved up after all that time, and it just seems that all we do now is bicker. Everything has gone wrong since DD was born. Not because of her, to be honest i think that has what kept us together as even he has said he would have walked away if it wasnt for DD. Just everything else, but mainly me, because i have turned from a fun loving, naughty, quite sexy, nah, very sexy (read slutty if you like ) loving partner to a miserable nag of a woman with no interests, no interest in getting interests and just plain old dull dull dull, all of that he could cope with if i wasnt such a prize bitch to add to it all.

Sorry, i wasnt going to rant like that, but i did But, we have spoken on the phone today, i told him i was sorry, again! and we will see how things go, but sometimes i think i should leave and that he secretly wishes i was so that he doesnt have to be the bad guy and chuck me out IYSWIM.