Hey guys. I’ve been taking 5 mg Celexa for a about a week and a half and last night my doctor told me to up my dose to 10 mg which I did. I had pretty bad side effects. I had really bad nausea and hot flashes and felt like fainting. I also still have body aches and bad diarrhea. Nurse told me to keep taking the 10 mg but I don’t want too cause I’m scared to go through that again. Anyone had similar experiences? How long did the bad diarrhea last?
SSRI's alot of the time you feel worse before better. It can take a few weeks. Don't ever just stop cold turkey. If you ever decide to want to get off, look up Ann Blayk-Tracy and the proper tapering which is no more than 3-5% every 2-4 week's. Educate yourself on SSRI's all you can.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is very helpful as well as exercise, some suppliments such as magnesium Glycinate or theonate. Read up on magnesium deficiency also.
Hi Anthony, this reaction is perfectly normal. About a year ago I was put onto citalopram (same thing as celexa) 10mg to start then 20, then 30 and finally 40 which I am still on. I found the side effects awful, nausea and sickness, diarrhoea, hot flashes, insomnia etc but I stuck with it and it’s changed my life! I haven’t suffered with major anxiety since last October when the side effects subsided. When the side effects were bad I was so frightened that it was not going to work and this made my anxiety worse. I know this is easy to say for me now but just go with it, once I stopped fighting against how I felt it helped. You will get through this bit I know it feels horrific but you will. The problem is when you start adding extra serotonin to your brain it thinks that it needs to drop your own levels so that’s why there’s such a blip to begin with. Don’t think about how long it took other people to get through this bit as we’re all different but it won’t be forever. All of a sudden things will start to get better and you’ll stop focussing on how you feel. Do you wake up and immediately think about how your feeling? Do I feel sick? Oh no the feelings are still there! My nausea was worse I’m the morning. You need to take care of yourself as best you can, I know eating is that the last thing you want to do but try and eat a little when u can, keep hydrated and try to find ways of relaxing. I found meditation really helped. You CAN do this and it WILL get better.
Thank you sarah3612. I wanna stick to it. But the problem is my job. I wouldn’t be able to fuction at my job with all these side effects. How did you do it?
I had to have a week off but after that I literally forced myself to carry on, I have two children too so had to try as much as possible to carry on as normal. Still had to do the school run, work, dinner. Oh my God it was so hard and I think most days I was in some sort of robot mode just doing the basics but it was exhausting. My husband was a great support on the days I couldn’t function at all hardly. I can remember taking the kids to a museum and going round pretending I was ok and going off every 10 minuted to be sick or just retch!! Does your work know the situation? I went and spoke to my boss and she was really supportive once she knew what was going on. Sometimes it’s harder when you hide it. I was the same as you I came on here and googled other forums as I just wanted someone to give me answers as you feel alone. Thing is so many of us have been through and come out the other side and you will too. Hope you don’t mind me asking and don’t answer if you don’t want to but why have you been put on the meds? Take care