First day on Escitalopram?

Good morning,

Today I woke up much better thrn i have been. No fight or flight panic mode for me today but I do feel like a zombie. I guess ill try .5mg of larazapam tonight.

I still feel slight anxiety in the back of my head but its way more tolerable as of right now.

you are very welcome!

You too Brian,

I am really tired today. I am trying to pull myself together for the family!

hope you have a blessed day!!!

Andrea!!

i just started feeling anxious

turkey in the oven

I did ok mostly but as soon as we sat to eat i broke down.

i cried now I am exhausted and taking a nap.

how is the anxiety. We are just sitting down in 10 minutes. ITS 11 degrees outside

went to my daughters gravesite.

it was high this morning then lowered but right before dinner it peaked and was pretty bad. i took half an ativan and it took the edge off. I

am relaxing right now but it'll get tough later. I feel it!

its raining right now here. I have always loved the sound of the rain and would often sit on the porch listening to it with a cup of coffee and these days I can't seem to find nterest in these things anymore 😦

I hope you were able to find even a few minutes of peace in your day!

andrea

does your family stay through the weekend. i don't understand how some people get better so fast. took one klonopin this morning got through dinner okay. my chest just gets so tight. My daughter came with her two dogs. sitting on the couch now trying to calm myself. we were discussing her wedding.

i dont know how some people recovery so fast either. but this is my 4th time and it always gets better around 6 months. i used to think i was only one until i met everybody on here .

im gonna just have to stay on these meds i reckon.

yall just keep going you got too.

hang in there!

THANKS BRIAN its so good to know i'm not alone. COOKED A TURKEY DINNER CLEANED UP AND MY HUSBAND AND DAUGHTER DON't know i have anxiety on the inside. when i started sertraline 23 years ago i didn't remember recovery taking so long but yesterday i saw an old perscription bottle for xanax which was

last refilled four years after my breakdown in 94 so i guess it was a long recovery

if i sit around i dwell on it and it makes it worse. if i MAKE myself get up and move and do something it helps recover faster.

thats got to be hard - them not knowing.

My daughter and her fiance are leaving now.

My husbamd goes back to DC sunday. My son lives here.

I think it has a lot to do not only with meds as well as whats going on in life as well.

With me I have my mom that is terminally ill and I spent 21 days by her side. She lives in CT. It took a huge toll on me and I pushed all my feelings aside until i returned home where my body and mind finally caught up on me and shut down.

Also i had fallen off my meds and then back on again so I was suffering both withdrawls and so

side effects. I have also developed severe depersonalization as well as obsessive thoughts.

I am currently waiting to see a therapist to talk about all of this and try to recover.

In the mean time I am waiting for the escitalopram and ativan to help. Some times the ativan helps to calm me but never shuts my mind off.

its been more then 6 weeks and I am just so tired all the time. Tired of crying, of being anxious, of waiting for this to all stop and wondering if it ever will.

I am tired of waking every morning to severe morning anxiety but thankful I wake at all.

Part of me wants to get off the meds and see what my body feels like:

This is definitely not fun. I just feel so empty and I am so ready to feel better!

Brian I do try to keep busy but no matter what I do I just am not happy doing it.

I know they say with the depersonalization it can last months.

I try to stay positive but it is just so damn scary

i know its hard beleive me. even though i know doing things help and excercise but i would just lay there couldnt sleep or rest but just lay there obsessing and worrying. sometimes its like i was there with family and friends doing the motions but so stuck in my head worrying and obsessing and at work i would walk around wanting to cry. i would put in my earbuds and listen to calming music or sounds and that wouldnt help much . but it finally started getting better around 4 or 5 months. im taking more interest in things at work now !

Thank you BRIAN!!!

Your truly a blessing!

I started a facebook page for those struggling as well. I want to help as many as i can!!

I named it : Rising above anxiety and depression you're not alone

i just want people to know they have support and as ugly as this gets we can prevail and survive!!

have a super evening!!

woke up with bad anxiety this morning just took a klonopin

are you on facebook

good morning lynn

I put some crackers and water by my bed and as soon as I woke up I took small bites of the crackers and small sips of the water.

It helped a lot but then the anxiety kicked in and I have been crying ever since.

I hate this so much!!

Yes I am on facebook under Andrea haas Nurse

just friended you

i wish i could cry.

going to look at furniture with my daughter. our you on klonopin now or our you alright. you took more then one while getting onto an antidepressant

im feeling better now. been one week on lexapro. im taking .5 mg at night just as a precaution while im changing over. didnt take one last nite. dr said it takes 5 weeks for prozac to completely out of my system.

shouldnt my anxiety be gone after 37 days

Brian will you be staying on that dose?

i think a huge part of my problem is that the dr started me back on too high a dosage.

when i first started celexa I was on only 10mg.

I ran out for a week and was started back on a double dose of 20 citalopram

After three weeks of no feelings she swapped me over to 20 escitalopram but then cut me to 10 escitalopram which essentially is like 20 citalopram. I honestly want to cut back to see if that helps because part of me thinks I am taking too much.

Bout she keeps saying no i need to wait it out!

That's what im saying. I know they say that it can take a few months but youd think we would feel something by now other than anxiety and panic and NO feelings

lynn thats very early. its taken me 6 months on 30 mg prozac to get here. i started feeling better around 4 months . its been getting better and better.

i hope i keep getting better even when prozac drops out of my system in 4 weeks!

i plan to give this dose of lexapro 6 months at least and see how it does. But the dr wants to see me in one month so i dont know. right now i have 10 mg lexapro in my system and some prozac still in my system . so i have to watch myself as prozac goes out of my system to make sure i dont start getting worse. dr says prozac will be out of my system in 4 more weeks.

brian did you take more than .5 klonopin in the first couple of months

i know where yall are beleive me.

when i first had anxiety 1999 dr gave me 50 mg zoloft . about month later i wentback said im not better he gave me 100 mg and it made me sleepy went back to dr he changed me to paxil i was jumping off the walls and couldnt sleep anxiety was three times as high as it was. went back to dr and he said stay on it . he was a general dr and didnt offer me klonopin and i didnt know about it anyway. heck i didnt know anything about any of this. so i took tylenol pm at night and did water arobics at indoor pool excercise walks in woods. around 3 months i started feeling better and 6 months i recovered. stayed on it for 6 years and decided i didnt need it big mistake! after a few months of messing around with a general dr i went to a real head dr . he new rxactly what was going on and what to do . he said some people can take this meds and go on and some people have to gradually work up to dose and are sensitive to these meds. guess which one i am. yep mr sensitive. he started me back on paxil 5 mg , 7.5 mg 10 mg , 12.5 mg all the way to 20 mg. i think we stayed on each does around 2 or 3 weeks so around 3 or 4 months i started feeling better and around 9 months i recovered. then around 2012 i decided i would come off of this med. big mistake! i came down real slow 5 mg every 3 months. went to real head dr he said prozac about a month later i said not working been crying the whole time . he changed to zoloft i got better around 4 months stayed onit for about 18 months . he upped me from 75 mg to 100 mg and we were going through tornado damgae out of house and home. i was crying every morning. i decided enough is enough i wasnt going to come slowly off the zoloft and i did big mistake.? started back upon zoloft gave it about 2 months and calledhim back then he started me on cymbalta because of having back pain also. felt better in a few months but it wasnt just right we addedabilify big mistake felt better then more anxiety. changed back to paxil 60 days i told him its not working crying all the time. we went to prozac 3 months in i started feelingbetter but stomach started hurting so anxiety kicked in . we droppedto 20 mg after about 9 months on prozac 40 mg.3 montjs later anxiety came back so we went back up to 30 mg prozac feeling better after 6 months but stomach hurting . changedto lexapro.

what i did several times is i didnt give the med time to work. instead i was jumping around to meds. this is whatanxiety does to you. so far im glad i gave this prozac 30 6 months to work even though it gave meheartburn. it seems im more calm changing to lexapro.

i want to encourage that they work slow you wil get there.!!!!

how much klonopin did you take/

from 2013 until around oct 2018 i took .5 mg klonopin aday sometimes 1 mg aday and sometimes 1.5mg aday.

the majority of time it was . 5 mg a day.

and yes the first couple of months after i quit paxil i was so bad i took about 1.5 mg aday

I take 1mg of ATIVAN 2-3x a day. I Try to stay at two times a day because I really want to beat the anxiety with as little ativan as i can.

However some days i need to take 1.5 to start the day depending on how bad it is and i don't allow myself to feel bad about that.

I just want to get back to some sense of myself!!

Brian

did you have bad morning anxiety???

If do how did you overcome it?

I have tried everything i cam think of!!

i am currently keeping whole grain pita and almonds by my bed as well as water and my meds to assist with a softer less abrasive awakening.

andrea

ive read that the chemical in your body cortisal is the highest when you awake. that is the stress hormone. this go around with prozac i would wake up early sweating not wanting to get out of bed but couldnt sleep i would finally get up get moving take klonopin and antidepressant and get moving. im like you i would keep klonopin on lamp stand and bottle of water and if i couldnt sleep at night i would take one. i did learn that if i take a klonopin in the morning and DONT get up and get moving i would fall back asleep.

basicly making myself get up and do something - get to work on time help.

weekends real hard to do

sometimes i would also put earbuds in and listen to honest guys on you tube. raining or ocean waves.

now when i started paxil i would wake up at 3 am and get on treadmill or try and do a thousand situps. i remember getting up at 4:30 in morning and walking in neighborhood 2 miles before work. i also joined gym and went there in the morning to burn off some anxiety. probably the best thing i did is water arobics. the water arrobics i did after work .

and saying all that i really hate excercise!!!

the mornings are the worst!!!

gradually they get better!!!

ended up going to a friends house dinner party with over 20 people there did okay a little anxious an felt sad but felt good i went.

Brian and Lynn did either of you experience no taste or nothing ever tasting good?

As an avid coffee drinker I haven't had coffee in 6 weeks other than a few sips here or there.

Nothing tastes right to me. Not even water which I love and drink more than a gallon a day. Now it just makes me want to throw up though I continue to drink it to stat hydrated.

Just curious if either of you ever experienced or are experiencing this.

i find my appitite comes back in afternoon and evenings. no klonopin today but feel sad and tired .

i didnt want to eat anything at all even my favorites. i lost weight , i didnt want to eat nothing for a while then cravings chocolate and sugar.

im gaining weight back now. back to eating now.

Yea me too I lost 27 lbs. Everything i eat is forced. Nothing tastes the same to me at all. It sucks so bad!!!

i lost about 20 lbs. in one of dr claire weeks books she says doNOT check your weight! it only makes anxiety worse

of course i did every few days or so to see if i was getting better or worse. it was part of the worrying anxiety.

im gaining it back rt now which is good but i wished i could keep it off ha!

the moderators blocked my post because i mentioned someone name. i just sent a post about one of the books we read the author so & so weeks said donot weigh yourself because it makes anxiety worse. of course i did every day or so to see if i was getting better or worse. made worry and anxiety worse. i lost about 20 lbs but gaining it all back now.