Coming off citalopram. :(

May have slightly lost the plot on what dose you finished at but if it was 20 mg ..could it be your suffering from going so quickly down to 10 mg?

The half life of Citalopram is 35-37 hrs so half of the dose is still in your body 35 hours later

After another 35 half of that is still there so I suppose it means it takes a long time to settle your levels and you have to carefully balance reductions when coming off...I never felt as bad as you are experiencing I must admit

Or maybe I have forgotten!

Thanks Gillian, half-life is a useful thing to know. Perhaps a joke about forgetting but it is definitely difficult to recall exactly how I was feeling - just as well I wrote it down!

The idea was to switch from Cit to Mirtazepine because I seemed to be stuck - not improving or getting worse - on Cit. Loosely speaking I have depression with anxiety being the biggest symptom. So the plan was to cut down Cit from 40 to 20 (over 3 months) and then switch. The Doc expected the Mirt to replace the Cit with perhaps a few tricky days while the levels balanced out.

However it turned out to be an extremely wobbly transition. Very volatile emotions, "drunk" feeling etc. etc. So as of 3 days ago I stopped the Mirt and went back to Cit. I'm just taking 10mg each morning (as I thought I might as well get some benefit from this chaos). And so far today things are OK (i.e. no worse than before the switch).

Hi Bonkers

A psychiatrist I saw four years ago said that no-one benefited from a 10 mg dose (one person she did meet) and few benefited from a 15 mg dose and all to most from a 20mg dose. This I think she meant for its anti-depressant factors not necessarily anti-anxiety. Something like that anyway. I haven't had to switch drugs like you are doing in such a quick manner. Sorry for the hard time you have had. I found a useful website from sharon126 posted in early July. There may be some more info for you on that website also.. there seems to be a lot of different conversations going on in patient.uk ,maybe one that includes switching anti-depressants. Not that I don't like to read your posts but just thinking how to get you some information.

I don't mean to say stop taking the 10mg dosage as that would probably be a further shock to your body.

Day 4. I've been out all day on our local hills and feeling very good. All adverse symptoms seem to have gone. Fingers crossed. I'll talk to my doctor to see what I do from here: I think I'd like to try reducing Citalopram to zero but a bit more carefully! Thanks for your support.

Hi, it's been 7 weeks since I started coming off Citalopram. I had been on for 12 months starting at 30mg, stopped at 5mg.

For the first couple of week I had a lot of the symptoms others have reported, particularly the "Head Zapping"sensation. That seems to have gone now but I do have one unexpected symptom and I wondered if this is common. I get a throbbing, pulling, creeping, or other unpleasant sensations in the legs particularly at night and an uncontrollable, and sometimes overwhelming, urge to move them. Feels very strange and disrupts my sleep! I'm wondering whether this is even related to Citalopram withdrawal ..or something else? Any thoughts

Sounds like "restless legs" (google it). I have occasionally experienced a very mild form - like a phantom doctor with a phantom hammer testing my knee reflex (if you see what I mean). have not experienced it myself during citalopram withdrawal.

Well that's very weird seb as a couple of nights I had that in my legs and ankles felt sort of stiff. I wondered if it was something I had done at the gym. It's happened twice now. I took ibuprofen to settle. Am on 15 mg nightly on my own self managed reduction..not rushed as Gp seems to say... And last night I had three head zaps lying in bed.they only happen at night weirdly. I actually thought someone had sort of broken into my head!very odd

My girlfriend is a recovering alcoholic and has been on citalopran for 5 months. She started on 10mg but this was increased to 20mg after a few weeks and she seemed ok on it. She was also taking beta blockers, up to four a day (I'm not sure what size). She had a lot of the side effects others have posted about on here but her speech was never slurred and she never appeared dazed and confused, until now.

About a month a go she decided to stop taking the citalopran and beta blockers. She didn't consult anyone, she just stopped. Within 24 hours she had dreadful side effects (sickness, diarrhoea and terrible trembling/shaking). After about two days of this with no sign of it stopping she started taking her meds again and within approx 24 hours was more or less ok. Since then she has tried to fairly quickly come off it again and is now down to just 5mg. We don't live together but speak everyday and if I speak to her in the morning, she's fine, bright, bubbly and happy. By mid afternoon she's slowing down and by 9pm at night she appears drunk - her speech is slow, deliberate and slurred, she's easily confused and she can't do simple tasks like work her mobile phone or her computer or even read and she can quickly become very emotional and is easily upset. Given her history it's not unreasonable to jump to the conclusion she's drinking again, but she never did get drunk when she drank. I didn't even know she was an alcoholic till she told me she was doing the detox. So I've never seen her like this before. She promises me she's not drinking and that her GP has said it is a side effect of her meds. He is managing her withdrawal as of this week so she should get a couple of weeks on 5mg I think before he lets her reduce it again.

What I'd like to know is if you notice taking citalopran, like you do alchohol? Do its effects peak an hour or two after you've taken it? Is my girlfriend's claim that her visible intoxication every evening is caused by a citalopran pill taken 12 hours previously plausible? She's very rapidly reduced her dose compared with others on this forum. She's gone from 20mg to 10 or 5 in approx 3 weeks.

Obviously my concern is that she's drinking again but I doubt she would so flagrantly and if she is she's not reverted to her previous pattern, which like I said above, I never noticed. Grateful to anyone who shares their experiences.

Goud34, from what I've read you should reduce Citalopram dosage gradually - I went from 30mg to 5mg over 6 months and I did have typical withdrawal symptoms each step down. I stopped completely at 5mg which was a mistake I think as this was tough, with hindsight I should have gone to every other day or even lower dosage first. Your girlfriends dosage reduction seems rapid to me, although I'm no expert.

For me, the impact of changing my dosage would be noticed after about 48 hours

(Bonkers and Gillian, thanks for your comments to my post)

Hi Seb100,

I was wondering how you are feeling now you are off the citalopram completely, I started to taper off from 20mg last April, going down to 15 for a month, then started on 10mg at the beginning of May, I had a bad second week on the 10mg and it has put me off going down any further so I have been on 10mg since May, I should have gone down to 5mg at the beginning of June and off of them in July but I am still stuck on 10, I am thinking of going down to 5 after this week, (it is my partner's birthday this weekend so thought I would leave it till after that), I would love to know how you are now that you are completely off of them.

Hi cmc46,

First two weeks were tough but manageable - I had all the symptoms such as "brain zapping". For the following 5 weeks I felt OK, the zapping went away but a lot of broken sleep. Recently though over the last couple of days things have got bad for me again (which prompted me to join this forum). I've been getting my old anxiety attacks back which was the original reason for going on Citalopram plus my sleep has been very poor. I've also been having a lot of spasm's in my legs particularly at night contributing to the sleep problems. What surprises me is that having given up Citalopram 1st July why I'm I now getting significant issues now, I would have thought to have gone them sooner? I think as things were going well I took things for granted and got back into some old habits at work - long hours- which can't have helped. I'm basically taking it easy for a few days now and I'm feeling better. Luckily I have a weeks holiday now to try and sort things out. I'm resisting going back on the tablets for now anyway - hope that helps

Oh I'm sorry to hear that things are not too good at the moment, like you once I get off of them I don't want to go back on, I am taking them for anxiety rather than depression. I think I will give it a go, I won't know until I try how things are going to be but I have heard of so many people saying that they are fine and then 4-5 weeks after coming off of them it all starts up again. Thanks for your reply and I hope things get better for you and you don't have to start on the medication again, to be honest I know they have done me some good but I do wish I hadn't started them in the first place.

Hello every one. I posted this website a while ago, which helps deal with coming off antidepressants. Thought it would help any one new to this forum.

For some people it can take a long long time to wean off. Me being one of them! I tried going from 20 to 15 but after 8 days didn't feel right so went back up 20. I'm trying to pick a good time to wean slowly. I have also found a very helpful book...The mood cure which advises Certain Amino acids with great success . Some of them you can not take while taking anti depressants but thought it would be useful for those of you who have stopped your pills. I told a friend about the book and she could not believe the difference after taking one of the amino acids ..positive mood and more energy!!!! I do hope this helps.

Good luck to all of you x

Emis Moderator comment: I removed the link as it didn't work but if anyone does want it please use the message service.

Goud34 - re your girlfriend's apparent drunkenness. My recent posts show what happened to me when I changed meds and stopped 20mg citalopram. It was very like being drunk. Not sure if this is similar to what your friend is experiencing.