citalopram

As always, check with your doc or your pshrink as to what to look out for, and write down anything weird or odd that happens after you're on the stuff for a while. It can take up to a month for it to begin contributing to your system.

My psych nurse doubled my dosage of the stuff after I had anxiety attacks earlier this year. It has helped make them less acute.

iirc it's an SSRI so if you've been presribed these before (I hadn't) it might have a similar effect on you as the previous ones.

it could make you have worse anxiety or panic attacks - but then again , so could worrying about it.

The best treatment for anxiety is cognitive -behavioural therapy becuase its someting you will have to learn to cope with over the course of your life, and its safer than drugs

me reccomend this!

but definately medications can help along the path - still, many psychotrpoic medications are not without their unpleasant side effects

it sounds like basic advice but a lot of people i know don't really follow up w/ their doctors. they'll take something for two weeks, not feel any better, decide it's their fault and go back to trying to cope w/ depression on their own.

i have been taking this shit for like 7 years (!!!!) and i am really committed, i think, to coming off it this time (after a few failed attempts in years bast) but goddamn i basically teeter between rage & the verge of tears all day, mixed with nausea & dizziness. and nightmares. i guess this is all fairly typical stuff to be experiencing, from what i've read on message boardsa bout the stuff. i at least had the sense to wean myself off slowly, but this is still awful.

what i guess i'm getting at is if i am acting like a douchebag in the near future on ilx please do not suggban me thanks xo

this stuff is great

SSRIs are notoriously difficult to stop taking. You def. need to taper off gradually. Talk to your prescriber about the safest way to wean.

funny this should be revived today, I started weaning myself off this shit this morning -- only took half a pill. I've gone off it before, and while it sucked for a few days, I've gotten through it. And I've been on a pretty low dose for a while anyway.

I only hope I can hack it once I'm clean.

It must be officially the season to attempt getting off this shit, the thought has crossed my mind.

Do not despair, Ian. <3 u

Ian take a look at this fwiw. Going off meds sucks but doing it right sucks less.

Mucho support, Ian.

Also if you need a shoulder to rage out and puke on, I'm here, yo. I had been on Lamictal for four years and the eight weeks of going off it were some of the worst ever.

I tried going off it last month. I managed about 3 weeks before the crying jags, the suicidal impulses and the RAAAAGGGE got too much for me. It's really ugly, so good luck.

I need to look into methods of slow reduction because I can't go through that kind of thing again. But I don't know if I should be taking it every other day or cutting the pills in half or what.

The last time (this was years ago, though) I talked to my Dr about coming off, he basically told me that it was all in my head, it didn't stay in the system more than 2 weeks and if I was having trouble, well, that was just my bipolar disorder coming back with a vengeance. I just thought "yeah, fuck you, you just proved you know jack shit, never asking you about this stuff again."

i checked my email, and i stopped taking paxil almost exactly five years ago (3/30/05), after about five years on it.

the first while was tough, but i found that it really helped to just like be patient with my own recovery process. it's like, with one fewer coping mechanism, it was a really good time to re-evaluate what made me happy. be really good to yourself, ian, and try not to judge your progress too much while youre gettin through it!

additionally, i found that reading message boards devoted to meds/depression made me extremely bummed and anxious, but YMMV. actually, i think that's pretty true in general of all this: the whole experience of being-on/going-off meds is tough to generalize. just drink a lot of water and play a lot of scrabble w me aight?

15 years on Paxil now. I've somehow escaped side effects so I just don't really mess with the status quo-- at the same time, it seems preposterous that I should be on this the entire rest of my life. When I've gone more than 2 days without due to pharmacy snafus or whatever I get dizziness and the famous 'brain twitches' but no actual mood/cognitive symptoms. I suppose those must come later after a week or more.

Sort of curious whether most of you decided to wean off due to side effects or principled non-dependence?

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/00574/celexa-birth-defects.html

Side effects.

I gave up on the idea of principled non-dependence ages ago.

fwiw I don't think it's fair to those who do *choose* to be on anti-depressants & c., and who find them helpful, to refer to being on them as "dependence."

I took this for about a year, but have been easing off it for several months now and am basically done (just 3 10mg pills a week, which I'm pretty sure is about low enough dose to jettison). Thankfuly I never had any problems at all, either when on it, or while phasing it out.

I never had any noticeable benefits either though, but then I never have with any anti-depressants.

Worth reading:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/03/01/100301crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=all

yeah, probably best thing i've read on the whole ssri vs placebo, chemical imbalance vs "marketed" disease shebang.

I was singularly struck by Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, and then by a book about big Pharma I read immediately after it, that there was just so much more *to* SSRIs that I was never told and was just not available as information before I was put on them. The whole thing just left me with a really bad feeling that was actually independent of (but related to) my existing desire to come off them on account of the side effects.

I am certainly not criticising anyone who finds them helpful. I certainly did, and they got me through some situations I probably would not have survived otherwise.

However, the more I learn, the less comfortable I feel with taking the things. And the fact that they are so "addictive" (however you want to define that - I mean, "difficult to get off") makes me want to get off them more, not less.

today's emotions:
-did not want to get out of bed
-mad lust for the girl on the train (reading carson mccullers, straw hat, baggage)
-anger at cars and their asshat drivers
-crippling loneliness
-trying to come to grips with the utter meaninglessness of everything i do in a day.

I never felt as bad as when I was coming off SSRIs (sertraline), but the discontinuation syndrome does end.

best wishes ian - you'll get through okay.

just started reading the new yorker article but this is also a good one:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all

hugs, ian (yr days are not meaningless)

-did not want to get out of bed
-mad lust for the girl on the train (reading carson mccullers, straw hat, baggage)
-anger at cars and their asshat drivers
-crippling loneliness
-trying to come to grips with the utter meaninglessness of everything i do in a day.

ian fwiw i think that all these things are perfectly reasonable responses to life!!

hey ian if u wanna hang this week gimme a call, im basically free

Big hugs to you, ian. I hope things turn around for you very soon.

xp 2 tracer: yes but it is my mind being unable to process these things in a healthy manner that is the problem

max: thanks; i'm out of town util thursday and tbh probably not much fun right now.

thanks everyone.

iaaan

i will be in ny this coming weekend and would love to see you, fun or no

aw, elmo, i'm actually in RI right now.
but not really free, unfortunately. let me know when yer in the city.

just took one of my last remaining ~10mg tablet fragments. hoping it will help mellow some of my mood swings for the next few high-stress days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8uDm_MCXpc

4 u

<3 <3 <3

all better

thanks anti-anxiety meds! I don't have panic attacks anymore! Now I just feel little to nothing at all and feel the need to avoid people and have bad mood swings! :/

Dude go talk to your doctor, and have him/her lower the dose or switch meds. Anything that messes with your brain chemistry can v easily mess with yr brain in unwanted ways.

what are you taking cattle g?

sigh.
i just re-filled my prescription of this, well, i called it in and should hopefully have some by tomorrow.
i couldn't do it. :\

For heaven's sake, you silly man, why were you trying to get rid of something that makes you feel functional, happy, human? Okay 7 years fine, but...haven't they been a better 7 years than they would have??

It's ok Ian. This does not represent any kind of failure on yr part. It's just a med, there is no moral dimension to it.

(says mr. 15 years on Paxil)

God I'm a bitch. What I meant to say was that I'm sorry if you're sorry that you're going back on, but I would rather hear that you're a happy Ian (relatively speaking).

yeah, i agree w laurel. and going back on doesnt mean giving up on being meds-free, even soon! it's just all about corralling your coping mechanisms, chemical and otherwise, and finding the balance that youre happiest with. existential anxiety about what it means to be on meds and everything is just another facet of being depressed.

i dont mean i agree that youre a bitch laurel obv

thank you guys, yer the best.
obviously laurel is kind of a bitch but... love her anyway.

"existential anxiety about what it means to be on meds and everything is just another facet of being depressed."

So OTM.

i never really attached any stigma to being on the meds, i just thought i had learned enough about myself and about how to deal with life that i would be okay without them.

i hard time going back on ~medz~ but i guess theyre btr than not sleeping for three days str8

oh dude, you are figuring this shit out -- changing your meds-regimen is not physiologically trivial, and it's not always like easy? i def had to take several passes at being meds-free, including halving pills, going back to full pills, skipping days, etc etc etc, all over the course of a year or so. it's truly just about building up your coping-infrastructure IMO, and the fact that youre stoked to be off says to me that youre gonna figure out how to make it work!

Ian, I am glad you know yourself well enough to have made the right decision for you here. Zero shame in taking meds, and like everyone said, the process of going med free (if that's what you want) is a v long and ocassionally bumpy route. Don't beat yourself up over this!

what are you taking cattle g?

Effexor. I'm debating the right course of action. i've always had mild anxiety, but it ratcheted up to life-disrupting levels last year. My hand/leg would twitch involuntarily, my leg would also feel like pins and needles a lot. I missed a lot of work.

I don't know if the pills helped or if I naturally adjusted, but it always seems like when I go without it has negative effects. On the one hand it does seem to be flattening my emotions a bit, but if it makes me not anxious, I'm not sure which is the better option. I went a week without it earlier this year and became more emotional than I'd been in 10 years, so I can tell it's 'evening out' my emotions somewhat.

@ian--keep the faith, good man. one day you'll get there!

CG: My experience with citalopram is somewhat similar to what you describe--definitely been more emotional than i have been since high school. it's really tough. my ex took effexor, and even missing one day would cause all sorts of ugly physical side effects for her--headaches, dizziness etc. Good luck to us all.

already feeling a bit better fyi; thank you to ilx for being rad.

<3 ian.

laurel,
i miss you.

ditto ditto

Been off this completely for well over a month now and am feeling good, with no signs of ill effects whatsoever, neither physically nor emotionally.

Not that I ever noticed anything when I was on it either, but anyway...

I feel better not to be using it.

:D

I am on Zoloft and it has been good...except for a two-week period that ended about a week ago when I blew up at a number of close friends, couldn't talk to anyone for any period of time without being deeply strange and had a racing hearbeat and other weird physical side effects. There are also large chunks of time (including whole classes and hour long car journeys!) that I have absolutely zero recollection of whatsoever. Is that normal or what? I feel pretty much fine now but it was not fun. I literally thought I was going crazy. So yes, it would be nice to come off of this stuff one day soon.

Good luck, Ian.

I did a month and a bit of slow reduction, spacing out the time between doses longer and longer. I have now been off it completely for nearly 3 weeks, and this is the bit where I'm usually a weeping suicidal mess, but I actually feel OK-ish. The physical symptoms were not as bad, but more drawn out.

Sure, I've been slightly more moody and short-tempered than I was while on it - but it feels more like I'm not willing to put up with bullshit that formerly I would just shrug and ignore.

I've already started to drop the citalopram bloat, I've lost nearly half a stone without any kind of food intake modification (in fact there was a holiday in the middle there where I ate nothing but Cornish pasties and cream tea.) Waiting to see if my libido ever comes back - but all kinds of emotion things that had just disappeared for the past few years are starting to reemerge. Some good, some bad, I don't know. But I feel more... *me*. Definitely. In fact, I feel kind of cross, like I wasted 5 years of my life being someone else simply because the withdrawal was too awful to take.