Celexa to Zoloft

HI Kate

I tried to send you a message a couple of days ago. You seem really clued up!

I'm 7 weeks in on Cit. 5 weeks on 10 last 2 on 20 . I have some good days but my anxiety is back ,headaches, pins & needles & shaking.

Any advice please?

in my opinion and experience 7 weeks in you have all rights to not be well. for me it took months on the same dose 10mg to start feeling better and only a year in I feel OK. i was in a very very bad place when i started though, depression got easier few weeks in but anxiety worsened to really bad around 6th week in and lasted few weeks. Anxiety Side effect which it turned out to be, got better and other side effects went away in few months.

you had changes of doses in a very short span, and probably are adjusting. all this talking from GP you will feel better in 6 weeks turned out to be nonsense-it takes longer.

My advice would be perservere at least one more month before jumping to something else. all SSRI can generate anxiety when neurotransmitters adapt.

hugs and power to you, you can do it!!!!

Many thanks Natalie, you've cheered me up!

These forums are a godsend. I've seen 5 different GP's during my 5 visits and i don't have a lot of faith in them now. I'm better than i was but i wonder why you can get a good day then feel awful again?

I should stick on the Cit though you think?

Absoulutely you can get a bad day, sometimes even few days, and then it gets better, then you get a blip again

and so on. each time your blips get shorter and less frequent. it feels like a very wavey sea into which rocks are thrown but each time they are smaller and waves get less prominent too.

GP's are mostly clueless about this.

Let the dose settle.

my first antidepressant was sertraline, it gave me horrible insomnia, lost all apetite, had massive muscle twitches, felt extremely wired. I could not take it. In comparison citalopram was doable even though made me feel sleepy and groggy initially and gave me anxiety whicj in 6th week felt like I should be put in a straight jacket. It went away. i had many blips, still have them sometimes but it feels more stable.

xxxx

Thanks Natalie , much appreciated. I've never had any depression but its the physical symptoms that get me. The headaches, shaking & pins & needles. I have a good life & no proper worries. I don't understand any of it.

Have you done any CBT?

I went to some group therapy , it didnt do a lot for me

I totally agree with Natalie, it's a roller coaster of a ride but you will get there .... it took me 7 months of ups and downs to get to 90% well. I still have bad times but I can keep

it under control more than ever. Keep persevering....:)

i did CBT, NLP and one to one psychotherapy. I am now getting back to psychotherapy. I too had lots of physical symptoms prior to depression although last massive episode was triggered by trauma.

I would suggest Ltheanine, magnesium (treonate, citrate or bisglycynian), Vit D, vit B6 for the physical symptoms. No point checking magnesium level jn blood as it will be ok for most people unless you can do magnesium RBC. this one is a proper test, which no GP will do. with those symptoms most likely you are deficient anyway, as we all are through diet, stress and quality of food we eat (soil is depleted of magnesium and veggies don't have it nowadays as much as they used to). Lithuanian, czech and Polish high mineral waters are amazing for magnesium and calcium balance. Look at ionised calcium, vit B12 and vit b1 levels as well. all of them if at low.levels cause physical sensations and mood changes.

you can read about latent tetany- would give explanation to your symptoms.

Hyperventilation causes tingling too, so correct breathing techniques are important

Mediatation and yoga helps a lot.

Avoid sugar and high carbs as your body uses up 54mg of magnesium to burn 1g of sugar:) plus sudden insuline changes are taxing for adrenals which is something you want to avoid.

Citalopram helps, but it did not solve it for me. it gave me level ground, stability of some kind so that I can think again.

xxx

Good answer, i'm gonna try some of that. I have a regular few lagers each night as i'm frightened of going to sleep because i just CANNOT drop off without it!

Probably doesn't help but the last hour of the day is so great.

The tranquility, relaxing with no physical symptoms..

3 years ....40mg for 7 months.Its weird cus it works great until i noticed the times i upped my does was literally febraury it seems my anxiety comes back.I find that a bit odd how it works so great then it stops

My dose was increased to 40mg last week so it sounds as if my neurotransmitters are adapting to the new dose. I have been told it will take 4 to 6 weeks before I feel better.

Haven’t received it - but just seen the one from today.

But yes, agree with the others, 7 weeks is still quite early on these meds - took me 6 months on 20mg.

Also you will have good and bad days, seems how recovery works. Anxiety doesn’t just ease off and go, it’ll keep coming back as you recover. It gets easier as you progress.

My 6 months recovery got easier with parts of my day better than other times, though I’d wake each day with anxiety … and finally the anxiety stopped around 6 months.

Just give it time and let those good and bad days come.

K x

Hi Jess

Just realised we've messaged so just caught up with that message. 40mg is a big dose and some people find a reduction is better, and the symptoms finally go. Its not always the bigger the dose the better you'll be, its about what dose best suits your body.

Hi Kate,

My dose was increased to 40mg last week due to severe health anxiety episode. I am very worried that the Citalopram isn't working. I have also been put on Xanax to help me sleep at night for a few hours. Morning and daytime are my worst times when my anxiety is very intense. Also I don't have much of an appetite. I aslo feel a bit distressed at times. What should I do? How long before I start improving?

Hi Niall

Everybody worries the meds won't work for them, and I did too. The meds take a very long time to work and it can be months before you see any change at all, and often this is overlooked. Usually it starts by maybe sleep improves a little, appetite too, headaches ease off etc etc but people usually overlook this and expect the anxiety to ease first. It doesn't. For me I took anxiety with me throughout recovery, and it was especially bad every morning, with it easing by the evening (getting little glimpses of feeling normal).

You can't stop anxiety dead - its going to be there as you recover, and morning anxiety is usually worst because that's when your cortisol is at its highest when you wake, and it eases throughout the day.

40mg is a high dose and sometimes it causes constant side effects and anxiety rather than eases them. Of course it could be the dose for you as we all need a different one to suit our individual bodies - but I've always found from experience that you should try one dose for a good 2-3 before you can tell if that will suit you.

A high dose doesn't mean you'll get better any quicker than if you took a lower dose - some people recover on 10mg, some 20mg and others 30mg. Recovery will take just as long whatever dose you take - you can't hurry it and it'll happen in its own time for each of us.

Anxiety causes side effects ie racing mind, intrusive thoughts, physical pain, tiredness, fear ....... all of which then cause more anxiety. I can recommend relaxing as you move around - slow life down, do everything at a snails pace. Anxiety is your body telling you it wants to slow down so it can heal itself - as you slow down, your body eases and it helps to reverse the process of anxiety. As anxiety eases so too will all its side effects.

This is so helpful too whilst waiting for the meds to work.

K x

All the medical experts have told me my new dosage will work. My GP says it will take a few weeks. My neighbour a nurse said it will take 5-6 weeks but my mental health GP said 1-2 weeks. I don't know who to believe. Is it normal to feel a bit depressed as I cried a lot yesterday morning. My appetite is virtually nill as well.

i am sorry that you feel this way...

all.i can say is that in my opinion doctors are irresponsible saying that SSRI will work in weeks time... it only shows that they know nothing about the mechanism of SSRI's work with neurotransmitters.

citalopram did help to lift the worst of depression fairly quickly-in matters of weeks for me. but it was a silver lining, not the cloudless sky. first thing i noticed was that I did not feel the bottomless black hole, coldness inside and stopped crying for hours on end. I felt warmth inside, and actually talked to someone with ease I think 2 weeks after, and I thought whilst cooking: 'oh wow, I don't think about how I feel, I just enjoy the moment of cooking worh friends- without forcing smile on my face'. it was a first short moment of normality. then it went away, but my lows were not so low any more. every blip was shorter and less black. it took further few months for my mood to become more stable and in general feeling somewhat me again.

I did have bad anxiety with citalopram, that took much longer to go away and part of it was caused by the med. Now a year in I am healing. I am not healed. still way to go but I do things I would not imagine 2 years back at my lowest low.

I did not.lose apetite with citalopram. I did with sertraline, plus had many other side effects on sertraline and could not handle taking it. for me switch to citalopram was a good decision. i think some side effects are to be expected but if they rob you of the remnants of your life and power, then maybe not a med for you. if however it is the pace of healimg that worries you, I think if you read through many posts, you will see that most of us took months of slow progress to healing. it is a long way, but worth it.

xxx

well said natalie.

Hi Niall

Agree with Natalie. Its irresponsible of professionals to quote this.

Trouble is experts think these meds work like any other meds I’m sure - you take a pill and you slowly get better. Also they’ve probably never experienced anxiety so they don’t understand that not only do we have to suffer with the meds side effects, but we have anxiety on top of that. So they underestimate what anxiety is and also the time it takes to heal.

You wouldn’t expect a broken leg to be mended in 1-2 weeks let alone 5-6 weeks - and anxiety is the same.

There is no one pill that fixes all of us and no one timescale either.

The meds work at different timescales for everyone - we’re all individual, have different side effects, different issues and so we should all expect different timescales too as well as need different doses.

So if a doctor or health professional says 5-6 weeks, take that as 5-6 months. Same for 1-2 weeks (months) (though thats a huge exaggeration from them).

Just let the meds work for you in their own time - they will. For me it took 6 months on 20mg - I started noticing tiny changes at 3 months and the anxiety stopped by about 6. Some people take longer and many others its quicker.

Yes its perfectly normal to be depressed - I used to cry a lot too, and often its a good release of tension. Anxiety affects you physically, mentally and emotionally. There’s no harm in having a good cry.

For your appetite, its best to eat just very small amounts. Child size portions or smaller. Its something. Don’t overfill your plate at all. Also soup is good - its nourishing and filling. If you really struggle then speak to your doctor about a liquid meal replacement - often the sick and elderly have them when their appetites suffer. They’re full of nourishment and vitamins and will help until you feel more hungry.

Just let the meds work for you in their own time - let recovery come to you.

K x

Hi Kate,

Spoke to my mental health specialist and she has from today reduced my dose back to 30mg to be taken at breakfast instead. I am still to take my Xanax before bedtime. I am to ring her again on Thursday morning to see if that has made any change.

Niall x

Hope the reduction is going well - again it'll probably a little while for it to settle. Yes I used to take mine at breakfast time too - and thats a good idea to take the Xanax before bed which will help .

It might not make a difference yet - just give it a little time.

K x

Too early to tell yet