False positive pregnancy test

[56253tT]

I’m on contraception and also citalopram. I’ve been having a few symptoms that the medication can cause, but also early pregnancy! so I decided to take a test just to be sure. The test was positive, but I’m in denial (wasn’t actively trying) when I’ve googled, it says anti anxiety medication can cause HCG levels to increase and cause a false positive. Has anyone had this on Citalopram?

You will be okay xxx

I've not heard of this tbh. False negatives are usually more common than false negatives where pregnancy tests are concerned. You'll need to contact your GP if you feel you can't trust the pregnancy test.

I would contact your GP if you’re getting a positive pregnancy test and you don’t want one. I have tried literally all the antidepressants over the past 25 years and never heard of this happening xx

So I contacted the GP and they confirmed that this antidepressant doesn’t cause false positives. Now the confusing part 🙈 I didn’t take my tablets for two days in a row and was unsure if I should, but then after speaking with the receptionist who was passing message back and forth from me and the nurse!, she advised me to half my dose for three days then completely stop….so I started taking them again at half dosage! Three days in so I’ve just taken my last one and I’ve started with the sick feeling I got when I first stated on the tablets! Looking back I should have not started them again and just kept going cold turkey but the news has shocked me and I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m unsure if I will be keeping the baby as wasn’t planed and was on contraception , but now my heads gone into overdrive that I’ve damaged the baby’s development by starting again and feeling this way. The test I took on Thursday said 2-3 weeks so 4-5 weeks pregnant. Have I harmed the baby??

It's pretty unlikely I think. I was once told that the older the drug the safer it is for pregnancy as women will inevitably have taken it before knowing they were pregnant, and if that had caused problems it would probably have been picked up by now. I can remember being prescribed citalopram in the 90s so I think you'll be OK. They are very very risk averse with pregnancy prescribing though so that's probably why you've been told to stop.