Due to anxiety disorders when I feel "danger" (not necessarily danger but what I believe could be potentially dangerous e.g. high summer temperatures) and cocequent panic disorder, I am on citalopram sinceJanuary 2017. However I am not OK and my doctor suggested changing to cipralex which is e-cotalopram. I wonder if the new medicine needs time to give its best results or not since it is the continuation of the previous. Has amyone faced the situation? What happened?
This is the same medication. Citalopram is a mixture of R-citalopram and S-citalopram, which are both optical isomers (they have the same chemical formulae, but one looks like a mirror image of the other one). Recent studies suggest that S-citalopram is the biologically active isomer, while R-cialopram does not have any antidepressant effect (though it sill needs to be processed by the liver).
Since the separation of both isomers is a very difficult and expensive process, in my opinion using Escitalopram makes sense only if a patient suffers from a liver desease, whereby cutting the total dose of the drug by a half makes a real clinical difference (there is 50% R-citalopram and 50% S-citalopram in normal citalopram tablets).
Saying that, if citalopram does not work for you, escitalopram will not work either. This is the same thing, with the same binding profiles. I would suggest trying a different medication, potentially a different SSRI. As anxiety seems to be your main problem, sertraline and paroxetine would be the drugs of first choice (sertraline is less potent, but also produces less side effects; paroxetine would surely cure your anxiety, but the withdrawal effects can be horrible).
Great advise Johnkov, I was thinking of trying escitilipram but as you know from my previous post I'm going back on venlafaxine. I'll bear in mind Paroxetine. N