Completely lost

Sorry you're having such a terrible time right now. I ever took antidepressants until 2015. I took Celexa for two weeks with no results,and my doctor switched me to a low dosage of venlafaxine and mirtazapine. The mirtazapine did help me sleep, but th depression didn't improve. I was never suicidal. Finally I was hospitalized in July 2015  for treatment resistant major depressive disorder with psychosis and my psychiatrist found the meds that worked for me. I now take 300mg venlafaxine and 15mg mirtazapine and I am happier and sleeping better than I have for years. They gave me my life back. Different people can react differently to meds, but for me they have been great. I hope you will soon feel better.

Take care,

Phylls 

Hi.

Firstly, if you were doing well on celexa and you only experience one panic attack it seems

a bit of an overreaction on the part of your doctor to suddenly change you to another medication

all antidepressants can either stop working after a while or you can still have ups and downs during treatment.

it's not unusual to suffer the odd panic attack or anxiety attack when you are on anxiety medication.

the purpose of these drugs is to even out your mood so that on the whole you are less anxious and you have less

occurences of anxiety attacks. The rare attack can be managed by short-term anti-anxiety medication such as diazepam

I would have suggested continuing with your Celexa and only if you started to get panic attacks more frequently ,

then the next step would be to consider increasing the dose of the Celexa because you may be experiencing tolerance on the lower dose.

only after various doses are explored should you be considered for a switch rather

medication.

Effexor is a much stronger drug than celexa and its side effects profile is much harder. If your condition is primarily anxiety rather

than depression then a switch to another SSRI would have been more appropriate something like Lexapro or Paxil rather than jumping to an SNRI.

Effexor side effects usually subside after two to three weeks but for some people they can

linger around for quite a bit longer. With such severe side effects after a month increasing the dose is

likely to make things worse, but 37.5 milligrams is an effective dose for anxiety in many people but some require more

and so maybe your doctor wanted to see if that improved the condition .

Your options are either to stick it out but clearly you have decided that you don't want to do that which is fair enough

there is no point in reducing the dose back to 37.5 milligrams because that probably not an effective dose panic attacks and will not treat your

condition. Therefore the next option would be to go back to the doctor and ask to be switched over back to celexa and maybe

try a different dose or request to switch to another SSRI class as the ones I have mentioned above which tend to have a less brutal

side effect profile, although that cannot be guaranteed as everybody reacts differently.