Depression worse

Thanks killdogroad, thanks for your advice, it's the morning anxiety that's draining me, if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be depressed, it's a vicious circle I know but can't stop worrying and I know this is making me worse! The odd thing is I didn't have anxiety for two mornings and thought I'd turned a corner and had a great two days then it came back!

I remember this all too well. My stomache physically hurt and I was overwhelmed with anxiety mostly up until 12noon. In some patients this drug can increase anxiety and I mean the intolerable wear you out anxiety like me. If this seems to be the case please tell your doctor how bad it is. My anxiety is a lot better and soon it will be gobe but not without a lot of effort and being brave enough to try another drug. You will know if it just doesn't go away. It's torture and I do feel for you. It's just the drug try not to sleep too much although you will want to.

Some days all I want to do is sleep!!! How long did you give it til you switched as I keep getting told to stick with it so I'm trying, also what are you taking now?

Escotalopram is not an easy drug to come off you will go thru a lot of symptoms. I gave it 6 months. I started to feel better the first week on my new drug. I know this makes no sense but it's true. I am on Trintellix here in Canada another name in the US. it is new and expensive. There are other alternatives but I suggest you wait till you can't take it anymore.

Just remember you have to take control and with a good doctor come up with a plan and if that doesn't work try another. Sorry but I have to go to work. oh, I wasn't overly sleepy on the escotalopram tho. This is usually near the beginning of a drug and goes away.

Thankyou, appreciate it

hi Susan, how are you doing, are you feeling any better the last couple of mornings?

can you remind us, is escitalopram the only depression/anxiety med you have taken,   and if not, which other ones have you tried in the past?

Hi Sparrow, still having bad mornings, I am waking with shakes and dizziness with the anxiety! I've been extra emoitional too and crying!

I was previously on citalopram 20mg for about 5 months and tried and tried with it but I was on a roller coaster with that and heard such good reviews for escitalopram so hope this is going to work! I'm so stressed that my holiday is going to be awful that I'm under extra pressure for it to work!

hi Susan i can offer advice but the problem is, it's often a slow road with antidepressants because, they need time to work (sometimes months) and also, that's even assuming you are on the right med for you (so, it can take time to get on the right med, as well as waiting for it to work properly).

you certainly have lots of options left, and time.  it's that 'waiting to feel better' which is the problem for all of us unfortunately (and on top of that, the 'feeling worse before feeling better' which some people get when starting antidepressants is the last thing we need!)        no doubt your holiday is not helping your stress/worry/anxiety.  is there no way you can put off the holiday?  it certainly is not as important as your health, and if it ends up with you going on the holiday and feeling awful during the holiday, it wouldn't have been worth going anyway (because a holiday should be a nice time away shouldn't it).

if you want to try another antidepressant, i would recommend sertraline, which is a well tolerated antidepressant and some would say better for the anxiety side of depression than escitalopram is.  perhaps you can discuss that with your doctor? you should start on 25mg of sertraline for 1-2 weeks and then if necessary move up to 50mg.  no need to taper off of escitalopram first; just take 25mg of sertraline in the morning instead of escitalopram.  if it turns out that the escitalopram was making your anxiety worse not better, you will feel better fast for doing this switchover from escitalopram to sertraline.

perhaps have a think about if you want to give escitalopram longer, or switch to something else.  the problem is it would be a bit of a guess as to what would be the best choice (because we all seem to react differently to meds), so perhaps have a think (and chat with doctor) and decide how you wish to proceed

keep us posted and try not to worry ok

ps. for the record i have actually switched myself, from escitalopram to sertraline, about 4 days ago.  like a lot of people here, i'd simply had enough of the escitalopram morning anxiety.   note though, that when i took 10mg of escitalopram, the morning anxiety only lasted a week or so, and then went away for good (which is why Susan, i assumed it would probably do the same for you, because 10mg is not a high dose).  then i moved up to 15mg (because i felt 10mg was not enough to tackle my depression), and then increasing to 15mg gave me morning anxiety again, which lasted a week or two, but went away again.  so then what was the proble,?  well, on 15mg i felt like it still wasnt tackling my depression as much as i hoped, so i went up to 20mg.  and guess what, it does seem to be tackling my depression properly, but the morning anxiety at 20mg wont go away ... aargh!  so it was a close one with escitalopram, it was almost ideal for me, but didn't quite work out for me.  i have switched to sertraline (i started on 50mg, and did not need to taper off escitalopram first;  i just took 50mg sertraline the next day in place of the 20mg escitalopram).  then, 1-2 days later, the morning anxiety has completely gone! finally!  it's still ealry days for me on sertraline though, but certainly at the moment im feeling better for making the switch.

Thanks Sparrow, I'm going to have to give escitalopram a bit longer and hope for the best as don't really want to switch so close to my holiday! I'm going to try and think more positive and cross fingers!!! Thanks for the advice though, appreciate it ??

cool ok, i think i would be surprised if the anxiety does not pass on 10mg of escitalopram, so hopefully a bit longer and it will go away.    ...      - dont lose heart if you end up having to switch to something else, as even if u did, u might find the next med works quickly without having to wait ages (like with me, i switched to sertraline and felt better the very next day.. no start-up side effects for me with sertraline (i think the many months of escitalopram got me passed those common start-up side effects already)

best of luck!