I've just been prescribed "Citalopram" for anxiety/depression - has anyone been on this?

i think i'll think about whether to take this or not for a day or two. i am deeply suspicious of medicine.

I wouldn't be scared about it, though, in terms of actual physical side effects. Especially if you're starting a low dose. If it makes you feel really jittery and slightly impulsive don't do anything rash, though. But lots of people take them. I suppose the troublesome part of it is, well, it creates this extra dimension of uncertainty, i.e. which of my behavior/moods is really mine, and which is from the "chemical imbalance" and which is from the medication to redress the imbalance? But then, if you have anxiety and depression you can worry endlessly over that anyway - what issues am I totally responsible for and what is caused by persistent anxiety & etc.?

I can't comment on the specific medicine you mentioned, but i can say that fluoxetine has been very effective. And apparently they are both SSRIs. Took a month or so to have much of an effect though.

(xpost)

i went off the stuff in oct, and felt like SHIT until i went back on in mid-January. having a bad Election and a massively frustrating job just made things worse.

my anxiety was so bad that i started fearing things that are completely ridiculous and outside the realm of possibility. i have always been depressed and find that to be not
so severe that i need to medicate it, but the anxiety was ruining my life.

i also hate medicine, so i was very nervous and very skeptical to take anything. i would,
in desperation, pop xanax and just hope to fall asleep so that i didn't have to worry about
counting my decelerating heartbeats. so needless to say, i was not especially eager to
take another pill. at the end of the day, i took three weeks off from work and went away
to my parents' house and just read and relaxed so that i didn't really even notice it coming
on.

i waited a while after i felt "better" before i stopped taking it, but despite its helpfulness
i didn't want to be on it any longer than necessary. i have been off it for 2 1/2 years and
i'm doing okay. i still am an anxious person, but i always have been, and in the time i was
on it, i devoted a lot of thought to how i would deal with these issues when i stopped taking it.

i would say if you have a serious problem, meds are a possible solution worth exploring.

As for the valium, I was on this for about a week, and it was just nasty. It makes you tired and not really with it, but not in a nice way. I'm not sure why anyone would use it recreationally.

Well where's the fun in that! (Best of luck to both of you.)

x-posts.

can you drink with valium?

oh well.

I've had this, Hari, and all I can say from that experience is that it was teeeeeeerrible. And really don't take it if you have any sort of sex life at all.

I'll try and be more in depth, if you like, don't have time right now. But if you've any questions, fire away!

i think i'll go back to the doctor next week instead and talk more in depth and decide whats best then

I don't mean to be too down on it at all, it's just that from my own experience, the mere thought of taking it again - and having those same feelings - is almost enough to bring on a panic attack in and of itself.

And if you do take anything, then really don't drink.

You can find alarmist stuff about ANY medication on the Internet. They're starting you on a really low dose, and it takes a while to build up enough to even have any effects.

I mean, if you're not going to give meds a chance to work, you're not going to give them a chance to work. But you can't take just the first couple doses and be in a position to know if they're helping or not.

Aramyr, you can be suspicious of medicine because there is a shitload of money involved in it.

Mind you, he *had* been drinking tens of cups of coffee a day.

Most of you do not take care of yourselves in the first place. Have you tried to exercise each morning, and eat nutritive foods? Do not poison yourselves with nicotine and ethanol and then wonder why you do not feel well.

And the one who says, "how can you be suspicious of medicine? This stuff is grounded in science, if it wasn't effective, doctors wouldn't be prescribing it," obviously has no background in science. Doctors prescribed mercury for hundreds of years, and claimed it was effective. There were plenty of fools to blindly accept their word.

Another weird side effect was that SSRIs made my gums extremely sensitive so e.g. flossing would be extremely painful.

I still advocate the meds though. They did a lot for me and I was willing to deal with the side effects. Even in withdrawal, I think I'm better off than I was before I went on them.

Of course, for some if's more of a chemical issue, others more of an emotional issue.

I don't think the two are so separate. When you're in a bad place for a long time, it can actually screw up the chemical wiring in your head. At least that's what I understand and it makes sense to me.

i actually think cognitive-behavioral therapy helped my depression/anxiety a lot, i'd say changed my life even (if that didn't sound so corny). and the guy who started it did so cuz he was depressed he couldn't get laid. interesting character.

though CBT is not without it's side-effects either. now i'm an insufferable know-it-all.

To Hari - I didn't mean to sound too harsh up there, it's that I hate to see you dismiss the meds before you've given them a chance. It's kind of a humbling experience to say, OK, I'm going to try and get better which means accepting to a reasonable degree the professional diagnosis and the prescription, and following it. I'm not too good at this myself obv! You know something is messed up when you're dispensing advice left and right and then look around & go, WTF, my life's kind of a mess right now.

Celexa did this for me. I'm experiencing the opposite in withdrawal, which I really don't like even without a partner.

It wasn't really subtle for me. The + effects started to appear within a few days. In fact the first few days I was taking it, I'd seriously get stoned on it. It was like smoking two joints a day for the first few days. I could even experience mild hallucinations when listening to music immediately after eating the pill. It evened itself out after three or four days.

I also think that medication should definitely be combined with talk therapy. I was kind of assuming that you've already been doing talk therapy.

I've been on Wellbutrin for years now, sometimes in combo with other ADs sometimes solo (like now). It's the only one that hasn't had a ton of unpleasant side effects with me (especially the sex ones) so that's why I've stuck with it. It's kind of weak though. I take the maximum dosage and it's nearly as effective for me as zoloft and effexor were.

Interesting what Sundar said upthread. Recently I read a book that suggested the type of trauma I experienced in early childhood might permanently alter the brain's chemisty resulting in illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I do not want to take meds for the rest of my life and hope if maybe through enough therapy I can deal with the inital trauma, maybe I won't have to.

It wasn't a problem before I went on Celexa but there was a major increase when I went on it (in both drive and endurance, ha).

HOWEVER, be very careful with the dosage. I went from 10mg to 20 mg and within a week and a half, had a full blown manic episode of epic proportions. My moods are still fluctuating wildly, even though I've gone back down to the lower dosage.

the only side effect i had was a difficulty in remembering what things were called sometimes - a lot of conversations like "you know, those metal box things. you put petrol in them. you drive them about.....CARS! how could i forget they were called cars?!!?!?"

Ha ha, that's what I've been like all the time, but I think you might be right, it has been getting worse since I've been on it. Also freaky vivid dreams of almost hallucinatory realness.