Up and down. Mostly down lately. Hoping for better days ahead. 8 weeks on Monday. Has to start to improve. If I could just shake the morning hell it would make everything else bearable.
Take care!
I thought the morning hell would never pass but it does. You just need to get up and get on with something as hard as it is. I have found the routine of getting up for work after 8 weeks off has made that easier. Rest assured it will go away and try not to fear it as I did and made it worse. I do appreciate easier said than done though.
Hello Kate, I have read a few of your posts on here and find them very inspiring and encourage me to be patient whilst waiting for these pills to work. Your story before the tablets sounds similar to.mine. I wanted to ask you though when you say you felt recovered after 6 months do you mean you no longer see yourself as someone who feels anxious, depressed or with obsessional thoughts? Or just they arent as bad? And are you still taking citalopram? Hope you dont mind me asking, just wondering what sort of recovery I can hope for!
Sarah
hi everyone just wanted to say hello and i'm having the same issues of just starting out on citalopram and having very difficult morning anxiety (very intense, negative thinking including suicidal thoughts and body flooded with anxiety). i have been on various antidepressants in the past, sometimes had success with them and other times not so good.
im taking 20mg and have been for about 2 weeks, i started on 10mg for 2 weeks.
i'm really hoping the morning anxiety will go away as it's so difficult and is a distressing start to the day isn't it
ok i hope everyone is doing ok and hope we will all find relief
When do you take your citalopram? I couldn't take mine during the day due to the initial heightened anxiety....i used to take it at night and sleep through the aide effects.
Im currently slowly moving it back to morning slowly over timr and am currently taking them in the afternoon now i have passed most of the side effects.
i take mine in the late morning, as one thing i tend to get when taking ssri's is i seem to have increased dreaming at night, too much of which can make me feel exhausted the next day. so i am put off from taking them at night incase it disrupts sleep - although that said, my doctor thinks that due to the long half life of citalopram, it doesn't really make a difference when you take them (not sure if there are other factors my doc is not considering though perhaps)
Neil, my doc did mention beta blockers in the past but do they make you even more tired? (i already get some tiredness from taking citalopram). i think that's what has put me taking off taking anything at all alongside my citalopram (eg. benzo's to help with anxiety); i'm worried that i will just be tired all day and i really don't want that as it kind of feels like replacing one problem (depression/anxiety) with another (tired all day!)
I agree about the long half life theory. My doctor is OBSESSED with saying i shld take them in the morning...no idea why.
Yes beta blockers do make me tired. Especially when i try and exercise...but i will take that over the morning anxiety any day...for now.
Benzos dont make me tired..they just calm me down
i dont think there is a right or wrong answer as to when to take citalopram - perhaps it should be taken in the morning if it affects your sleep (eg. insomnia, or vivid dreams), or in the evening if it makes u tired a few hours after taking it. that said, as time goes on and if you adjust well to the side effects, then it probably would eventually make no difference what time you take it, as long as you keep taking it regularly
i think i will give it a few more days and perhaps consider doing the same as you regarding taking something to help with anxiety. i think i need to be sensible and accept that like you it is better to be tired rather than have (in my case) anxiety so severe that it is very dangerous for me as thinking becomes very irrational and negative and it's just an absolute nightmare which is putting a big strain on both my mind and my body
Hi Sarah
Thanks - glad the posts help. It lovely finding other people and realising you're not alone isn't it.
I'd suffered for about 16 years of illness (1980 - 1996-ish) before starting these meds, and yes when from when I started I began to notice changes happening around 3 months which continued to improve over the next few months, and at 6 months I felt anxiety free all day and that's when I began waking up with no anxiety either. From 6 months on I still had the occasional time when I dipped, but it was nothing much really and I continued to improve every month from there on until about a year. But 6 months was definitely when I mark the time when I'd fully recovered.
I took these meds for 16 years and reduced them to 10mg for a maintenance dose which suited me fine, and then 4 years ago I came off completely for a year but had to restart after a year due to the stress of family illness which started to affect me. I restarted, stayed on them about a year and then spent a year coming off them and finished them last August.
Since being off meds I now take 5-HTP instead and feel completely well still. This means I'm completely anxiety free and have no depression or obsessional thoughts anymore.
K x
Forgot to add - that yes, I've been well since 1996 (with the odd dip for about 8 months 4 years ago).
K x
Hi Neil,
Just curious on how you are feeling now?
I have been on Citalopram for the 3rd time for almost 3 months now (having been on 20mg for 2 weeks, then 40mg for 5 weeks and now back down to 20mg for 4) maybe the dose changes is ruining things for me but I am still how you described, mornings painful, afternoons bearable and evenings almost normal.
Hope you're well now x
Wow Kate, did it take 6 months,
what made you stick with it when the doctors say 6 weeks?
Obviously you must be glad you did.
Glad you felt good in the end, I bet you had lots of life to catch up on
Hi BC
I was doing ok...mornings had got better, afternoons were ok..and evenings were good. Then i had a couple of days of depressed sad afternoons...followed by two morninga of heightened anxiety again. Today was bearable.but still anxious a little this morning.
My problem is i cannot sleep anymore. I get to sleep with but cannot STAY asleep
I cant remember the last time i had a proper nights sleep.
Doctors are clueless about this drug.
It is very possible you may need a higher dosage, but it definitely does take a good amount of time usually for your system to get used to the meds. I've been struggling myself lately since messing with my dosage and hoping to get back to my normal self soon as well. I was stable on 40mg for years. Stay strong and potentially think about increasing your dosage by a little bit if you still aren't feeling well within another couple weeks.
I know I told dr today I was getting twitches all over and was clueless
I've been on 40 now for about 4 weeks I haven't been 100% but not terrible. Then all of a sudden yesterday I had a horrible anxiety attack to the point I had to take a Xanax and come home to lay down. Today I feel edgey I'm assuming this is a blip? Can a blip last a couple days?
Oh I know. My doctor told me she takes it herself but yet she still seems to have no clue. The reason I upped it too soon was mainly down to her anyway. She had such a you've taken this before so crack on attitude towards it. Told me to take 20mg at first, but I told her I had 40mg tablets left over at home from previous so she told me to break them in half to start with. Cos she said to start with I took that as I would need to go up to 40mg again at some point... so I asked her when and she kinda shrugged and said whenever, I honestly think if I had stuck with 20mg for longer I would be fine now. It caused so much extra anxiety worrying I had messed it up by increasing too soon and having to go through the initial side effects all over again so soon x
To me 6 months was nothing really ..... not after I'd been ill on and off for 16 years. I wasn't told it would take 6 weeks (not that I remember anyway), in fact I didn't know that I'd recover, just that I'd been given different medication to take. Yes I was told how they worked, but after so many years being ill I never dreamt a little pill could help me.
It takes everyone months - many months, not weeks. If a doctor says it'll take 6 weeks then assume he means 6 months. It takes a long time for us to become ill and so it'll take a long time to reverse it.
Yes I was ecstatic when I recovered ...... I didn't know I was at the time either, just that I started feeling more at ease, less anxious etc. Today I am still so thankful for these meds and take great pleasure in every little thing (I see things in a different light now and don't take things for granted). If something is taken away from you, you love it even more when its given back to you.
i was ill with morning anxiety for 3mths couldnt gi to work, i found if i took night nurse this helped me sleep