Citalopram side effects; please help!

Treatment and medication
1

I’ll try and keep this as short as possible but so you’ve got background info…

I have been on 20mg citalopram for 4 years. This year I have lost my dog, we had to let him go in January at 6 years old due to bone cancer in his skull, 2 months later my 94 year old Nan fell and broke her hip so I did a lot of caring for her and I think this probably dulled some of my grief, 3 weeks ago I had a pretty rough day at work, grief had hit really intensely (it has eased off again as it does come in waves which I’m told is normal but I sometimes think people think after nearly 6 months I should be further along by now). Anyway, I had a big blip and jumped straight to increasing Citalopram to 30mg, looking back I don’t think I should have. It gave me such intense side effects I couldn’t cope with it so after speaking to the GP I went back down to 20mg after 9 days. I still have such intense anxiety in a morning with fast heart rate, EXTREME sweating, like my back and face is dripping, shaking, jittery, nausea, upset tummy, no appetite but then by about 5/6pm it all calms down. But now I dread the mornings because I know it’s coming.

I know it can take time to settle but considering I was only on an increased dose for 9 days and I’ve been back to 20mg for a week now I just feel like the side effects shouldn’t still be this bad? The GP has prescribed me propranolol to calm the physical side effects which does sometimes help but not always.

I guess I just need some reassurance, does this sound normal? Do I need to speak to the GP again?

I’m such an inpatient person anyway but when you feel like all you can do is sleep and stay at home and this could be my life for a few weeks it’s made me feel really low. I don’t want to do anything or see anyone. Just thinking about it makes me panic.

Any help or advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you :folded_hands:

1 Like
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No idea for the side effects as I had the opposite for sertraline, the higher the dose the less side effects I had, I could hardly stay awake and nauseous all day with lower dose, I think I’m just odd.

Propranolol didnt make me feel good at all though. I’m on buspirone for anxiety and it has helped soo much, I’m not majorly sleepy on it too.

Maybe you should talk to your docs about using different meds? See if something else helps.

I thought my anxiety was part of my depression so was wondering why my anti depressants weren’t doing a thing for the ultra sweats and fast heartbeat etc, until my therapist said oh hey you need something else for that and boom buspirone worked a treat, first day or so I was super sleepy and a little nauseous but after that nothing much.

I think there is a medication which does both anxiety & depression, my doc was going to give me that but can’t because of one of my other medications for migraines I think it was :thinking:

Best you can do is a little research then discuss with your doctor see what they think. :pink_heart: