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Hi! I have been on citalopram 20mg for about 18 months. It was working well, but in the last 2-3 months my mood has deteriorated. The only side effect experienced on citalopram was lack of sexual drive. Today I spoke to my GP and she advised to change my medication. She prescribed me Fluoxetine 20mg hoping it will resolve the side effect and improve my mood. Has anyone experienced this change in drugs? Was it good or bad?
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blackberry7 silvia52562
Posted
did you feel stable on citalopram and cope well. alot of people may disagree with me but if it has worked well for over a year i would not be happy rocking the boat with a change of medication, people can play with your life but they dont have to live in your body so its easy to just experiment on others, ive seen it and hate it.
Im a carer for someone who has been on these for over a decade, nhs would like to play guinee pig them and have tried a few times but i stop them before they start. The person i care for is stable and doing very well so why should they mess with her.
silvia52562 blackberry7
Posted
tony15730 silvia52562
Posted
Ok when making the switch there is one very important point to remember. Citalopram is out of your system in about 3 days BUT fluoxetine will take about 4 weeks to reach the steady state level in your blood. So this means if you stop citalopram dead and go straight to fluoxetine after a day or 2 you will have a withdrawel symptons for around 2 weeks while the fluoxetines builds up in your blood. If I done the switch again with the knowledge I have now I would 'cross taper'. So I would switch to a half dose of citalopram for the first week while taking fluoxetine and then stop the citalopram after one week IF I had no withdrawel symptons. Otherwise I'd wait a few more days before stopping citalopram.
FYI all ssri's are well known to cause sexual side affects. In fact most antidepressants do with the exception of a few. BUT citalopram for me was the worst in that department.
silvia52562 tony15730
Posted
tony15730 silvia52562
Posted
The only down side is if you want to switch from fluoxetine later on you have to stop taking it for a couple of weeks before starting something else as it takes a month to flush out.
silvia52562 tony15730
Posted
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