Pregnant, stopping citalopram before birth - anyone been through it?

[jebbieD]

Hi, I'm in the process of weaning myself off citalopram before my second baby is due in August.
Won't go into the disastrous and non-existent care during my pregnancy - but will say I was suffering PND from first baby, eventually got talked into taking the tablets, found out I was pregnant, was whipped off them really quickly by a rather clueless GP, totally crashed, lost a month when I was the lowest of the low, then was put straight back on them by consultant and midwife.
Anyway, blunder after blunder's meant I haven't had any proper contact with docs - I was just told early on I had to come off around week 34 so it was out of my system by the birth. Of course, no one's been able to tell me how to do this and the next time I see a midwife is at week 36 - 7 weeks after my last appointment which i consider too late, so I am worrying about coming off too quickly again and what that will do to me while also about to pop!
Was supposed to be referred to Community Psychiatric nurse in January but my urgent referral was mistakenly treated as routine and only saw someone last month and have now been told am on a waiting list for a first appointment with a CPN - so am not holding my breath this will happen before the baby comes!!!! Such efficiency!
So I have been gradually cutting down for the last month, reducing slowly by a quarter of a tablet at a time. I have felt fine doing this, but yesterday was the first day of nothing at all, and I have to say I felt like shit today - sick this morning, headshock things, dizzy, and I can feel my mood worsening.
I just wanted to know if anyone else had been through this and if this gets better or should I panic that I am going to turn into a bloody monster right in the last weeks of pregnancy when I am feeling enough like an immobile old lady as it is.
Don't trust the medics as they have messed up absolutely everything for this whole pregnancy.
Need real, honest advice.

I'm not sure if i can help but dont want your thread to go unnoticed - sure someone will be along with better advice. i came off a low dosage of citralopram when i became pregnant - i did suffer but it sounds like you were taking much more than i was.

I am pretty clueless about such things but dont understand why they want you to stop taking them for the birth? or is this unrelated.

Can you possibly see a different GP? ask to see a consulant, you should not have to go through this alone.

wishing you all the best - sorry this is prob no help - but will bump the thread
x

In our area if you want to see a midwife in between your schedualed appointments you can just ring them up and ask for an appointment. So you could try this.

I'd try another GP to if you've had no luck with yours so far. You should really push this as it's not acceptable to be left like this.

Good luck

I took citalopram during my last pregnacy. I started on it at around 4 or 5 months pg, I have taken various AD's during my adult life but stopped to TTC, but an extremely difficult pregnancy meant I started on them again before dd2 was born.

I started on a low dose, 10mg, which initially I took daily. When I got to 7 months I dropped to 10mg every other day. At 8.5 months I went to 10mg every 3 days. DD2 was born at 41 weeks and had no problems at all. Once she was a few days old I went back to 10mg daily and that is what I take now. She is now almost 10 months old and has had no side effects at all.

I totally understand the withdrawal symptoms, having been on various AD's myself I know exactly how it feels to come off them.

I am no medic but if I were you, I would continue on a very low dose, the lowest you can tolerate, rather than coming off completely.

Best of luck

Hi - I took citalopram up until I was about 5 months pregnant. I have been on and off ads for about 5 years and I decided to stop taking the citalopram after discussing it with my midwife. I cut down gradually but experienced the same withdrawal symptons you are experiencing.
It is a good idea to remember that your pregnancy hormones will be making you feel more emotional than usual and you will also not be used to feeling things so strongly because the citalopram cushions the strong emotions - good and bad.
I hope you will begin to feel better soon! I did have a few difficult days - especially when my work became stressful but my doctor/midwife were very helpful and signed me off for a couple of weeks.
I don't know how helpful this all is but maybe you'll feel better knowing that there is someone that was/is in a similar position to you!
Good luck!

I came off citalopram a while back and had to deal with a week of withdrawal. But by then I didn't need the meds for depression, so I didn't have to deal with the depression coming back.

There are anti-depressants you can take when breastfeeding - check KellyMom and Motherisk for good info. I would look it all up and maybe see your GP to ask about switching meds instead of coming off them completely. There's a risk otherwise you might get bad PND.

Hi

Im also doing the exact same thing, im only 10 weeks pregnant but been told i need to wean off the before the birth so i decided i would try and do it very very slowly, so im cutting tiny bits off the tablet and then a little more after a couple of weeks.

I know you dont have the option of doing it that slowly as your little one will be here sooner rather than later, i really hope you get support, its scary enough the thought of comming of them without any side effects.

Good luck.

x

I took citalopram a few years back for IBS (I was told it was all in my mind and the pills would relax me and make my IBS better - they didn't!).

I came off them really really slowly over a period of weeks. If you're down to 1/4 pill then try and take a slightly smaller amount. I didn't reduce the amount every day either, I'd keep my reduced amount for a few days and then lower it slightly more etc etc. If you're struggling to measure less than 1/4 tablet you can get citalpram in liquid formula which are drops that you take with water. This might be easier to reduce the dose to a tiny amount (?). Also, I took a tiny amount every other day at the very end before stopping all together so it just gradually left my system. Worked well for me.

I remember taking seroxat and suddenly running out and getting the most horrific heacaches/dizziness until I took my next dose, so sympathise.