Moved up to 40mg citalopram and feeling hyper with insomnia

[Paperplanes33]

I've just moved up from 30mg to 40mg of citalopram 2 days ago. I've gone from sleeping a lot to getting 3 hours a night and I feel hyper a lot of the time. I have so much energy, I'm jittery with it. Just wondered if anyone else has experienced similar and how long it lasted? I mean it's lovely to no longer feel suicidal but this is the other end of the scale and feels alien!

Yes I did, the increased dose caused me to go manic. I was later diagnosed with bipolar.

It might not be this but please do raise this as a potential concern to a trusted friend or family member and speak to your prescribing Dr asap.

Have a read about hypomania x

Same happened to me years ago with venlafaxine, they took me straight off it, I crashed back into depression, they put me on sertraline and again switched almost immediately back into hypomania. That’s when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I think you need to speak to someone as you need to get on top of it quickly as it’s not sustainable and inevitably what goes up must come back down but I totally get how lovely it feels when you suddenly come out of the depressive state. I’d describe my experience as feeling like someone had turned the lights back on rather than this horrible greyness I had been living in. Not sure about you @Superscientist but what they did with me was kept me on the sertraline and added in quetiapine and that sorted me out.

Yes same as PPs. Citalopram doing this to me specifically was what finally got me diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Please go to a GP ASAP and tell them what is happening before it gets any worse! I'm on aripiprazole now after quetiapine and olanzapine both left me too sedated and flat and it's the first thing that's actually made a dent in the depression that kept falling around my ears periodically from about age 15.

I also read this and thought of mania and possible bipolar disorder. Please reach out to your doctor for an assessment, you may need referring to a psychiatrist.

Oh wow thanks everyone I thought it would just be a normal side effect, it's not as intense today and I slept last night but I still feel like I have lots of energy to burn and want to get loads done. I'm seeing my clinical psychologist tonight so will speak to her about it.

Thanks

Good you got more sleep - lack of sleep is what will really send you round the bend at a fast rate 😖
I know what you mean about thinking is it just a normal side effect. I queried/didn’t really accept my diagnosis for years as thought ‘how could they diagnose when it was a reaction to a drug?’ But apparently it doesn’t happen unless you have underlying bipolar and basically the medication triggers the switch into hypomania.
I suppose that if your clinical psychologist knows you pretty well then they will be well placed to tell if you are acting out of your normal. Let us know how you get on xx

Yeah I remember turning up at my counselling session 2 weeks in - wired and jittery.
I said I felt amazing and he said let's phone your GP.
I had previously had one manic episode where i thought I could fly but hadn't been diagnosed with bipolar.

They stopped my antidepressants immediately and put me on olanzapine but I ended up on quetiapine. It was another 10 years before I could be on an antidepressant and not go high. The quetiapine did a good job of stabilisingy low moods as well as high though.

How are you doing today?

Increasing Citalopram affects my sleep but it’s acute anxiety that stops me sleeping and I feel horrible. When I go up a dose it’ll will take me 4/6 weeks to settle.

i experience a panic attack if i try and sleep during those first few weeks. My mood crashes and I can experience suicidal thoughts

Sounds awful - I was like that on venlafaxine and Vortioxetine. It’s definitely the lack of sleep that exacerbates the anxiety and depression in my experience x

Had insomnia again last night and felt jittery today so I contacted my GP who told me to go to a and e. I laid in a dark room instead 🫠 I feel calmer this afternoon though

You need to get this sorted as soon as possible - it doesn’t sound like it will
sort itself out. The crash after hypomania is not nice so as tempting as it is to carry on because overall you feel good now it is just not a good idea. Just go to an and e and you can get seen by psych liason who will be able to figure out what is going on with you and sort you out x

@MarmadukeM I don't know if it was hypomania, he referred me as was worried it might be serotonin syndrome but I don't have any symptoms other than insomnia and feeling super fidgety/ jittery but that part seems to have passed now and I feel tired so hoping I sleep well tonight. The symptoms are both in the citalopram leaflet so I'm less worried now. Do you really think I still need to go? Feel like I would just appear as an anxious person who is pretty baseline now.

Hmm I don’t really know, it’s sounds dodgy to me, time will tell one way or another I suppose. If you feel okayish and don’t want to go you could see if it settles down. I’m no medical expert though so I’d encourage you to do whatever they have told you to do.
it’s either gonna settle down or get worse. Do you feel excited and dead enthusiastic and energised? My hypomania was like this -
barely any sleep, still had endless amounts of energy to point I had to go out running, was dancing in my bedroom as couldn’t sit still. Racing thoughts, jumping one thing to another to another and not much ability to concentrate on any one thing. Not actually doing anything productive (like making sure washed baby’s clothes and stuff) as would rather make a mosaic mirror 🤦‍♀️ Talking non stop to point wouldn’t eat meals as just talked and threw them away (wasn’t hungry at all either). That kind of thing. Is this how you feel or is it insomnia and feeling ‘on edge’ cos I have felt like that/experiences that from certain meds and it wasn’t the same feeling as the hypomania, was just the meds making me feel what I’d call ‘wired’ which was unpleasant and none of the nice euphoric feeling of hypomania x

It was the euphoria type of high. So much energy, smiling a lot, fidgety, but I don't think I was talking that fast. It felt lovely. A relief from the darkness

Both hypomania and serotonin syndrome can escalate, quite quickly.
At the moment you have insight but that can quickly go.
I would go and I would go today. Tomorrow is Friday and many of the community systems will be open. The risk of delaying is that things escalate and you end up in a and e over the weekend when it's to be busier and with less options for support.
Your description sounds very hypomania-ery.

Some times you have to trust others. A few months ago my sister thought she was just anxious but everyone around said something didn't feel right. She reluctantly went to a and e and it turned out she was having a heart attack. She was very glad she had gone!

I find it so hard to make myself do things like go to the doctors about my mental health. I'm worried I'll go to a and e and they'll wonder why I'm even there. Especially as I feel calm now. It makes me feel really anxious about going.

You have nothing to lose by going and as @Superscientist said, things can change quickly and the thing is, the more unwell you become the longer it could take so get things back on an even keel. It definitely sounds like hypomania to me and if that is what it is then they will be able to identify it and get you sorted. X