Has anyone hear managed to stop taking citalopram?

Hello everyone,

A brief history, i've suffered from panic attacks on and off since I was 17, i'm now 27. At the end of last summer I was made redundant, this made my panic attacks worse. For the first time I went to see my doctor and he prescribed citalopram. I took 10mg for a month, then 20mg for a month, then 40mg for two weeks. At this point I decided they were not working for me, I wanted to go back to my old way of dealing with it without alopathic drugs. I dropped down to 20mg for a month, then 10mg for a month, then 10mg every other day and i'm now on 10mg every third day. For the last six weeks I have experienced what I understand to be withdrawal effects, headaches, pins and needles, dizzyness, slight stomach cramps and increased axiety. These effects come in waves. Three days feeling bad and then two days feeling quite good. I would like answers to a couple of questions please. Is there anyone on here who is now completely off citalopram and if so how long did it take for these effects to clear. Secondly, is there any evidence that citalopram can cause any permenant damage?

To those who are going onto citalopram now, don't take my experience as a complete right off. I have panic attacks because of post traumatic stress. I had an incredibly traumatic childhood including physical, psycological and sexual abuse. I dont suffer from depression, anxiety is my problem. What I can tell you is what citalopram did for me. I also suffer from flashbacks and nightmares, when I was on 20mg of citalopram these dissapeared. For me though I learnt to deal with flashbacks and nightmares a long time ago, I didn't think it was worth putting a drug in my body to treat something that doesn't bother me anymore. Unfortunately citalopram did nothing for my panic attacks.

If someone out there has managed to come off citalopram without feeling anymore withdrawal effect please let me know as after six weeks of them i'm feeling a little lost.

Many thanks.

Im sorry to hear you having a bad time coming off them.Its a shame you didnt stay on the40mg longer as you need to give each increased dose time to work4-6weeks. 40 mg is usually what is needed to see results in anxiety and panic. They wont cause you any permanent damage, but it would have been better cutting them down by a smaller ammount each time to lessen the withdrawals.Im still taking them myself so cant say how long you will still be in withdrawal,but im sure someone else will reply .Wishing you all the best sue:hugs:

Hi Sue,

Thanks for confirming that they dont cause permenant damage. The difference with me is my panic attacks are triggered by very specific things, I never got general anxiety or depression, in fact if I didn't get panic attacks i'm fairly happy with my life. Before I lost my job, which I found out i'm getting back in July, I was a very active person, citalopram made me very un-motivated all the time. When I was on 40mg I was like a zombie. The only thing making me anxious now is the withdrawal symptoms which at the moment are quite harsh and feel like they will never end.

Thanks again for your reply

hi guys,

Iv been on citalopram for just under six weeks(20mg) the first few weeks were hell then i came through but still feel really spaced out a lot of the time and unwell, went and saw my GP on friday and he has upped my dose to 40mg. as soon as i took 40 i felt awful, iv never felt so anxious as i do at the mo, iv got another appoinment on thursday with my GP and at the mo i think im going to drop down to 10mg and get off them as iv never felt so unwell.

Hi

I don't think there will be any permanent damage so don't worry about that.

I personally am not a big fan of day on day off and then two days off etc etc. My own way of withdrawing from ssri's is to take daily but you decrease the amounts gradually over the weeks. See if you can get Citalapram in liquid form then you can take it down very gradually.

Take care.

PS You will get side effects coming off these meds and it aint nice - just something you have to go through. Normally if you feel awful on a decrease then the med has to be taken up slightly again.

Hi Yvonne,

Thanks you for the reply, I was never warned by my doctor about withdrawal effects, infact he told me I could just come off them. It was the 20th of feb when I stopped taking 10mg. Three weeks earlier I was on 40mg. Since then its been 5 weeks of distinct discomfort taking 10mg every other day and so on. My main concern is the constant background anxiety which I have never suffered from until I stopped taking them 5 weeks ago. I have decided starting tomorrow morning to take 5mg a day until I balance out again. I hope it wont be too much meaning I take a step back in trying to come off them but will be enough to ease the withdrawal effect to a managable level.

To Swat77

If I can offer you any advise from my experience drop to 10mg and stay on it for at least six weeks. Following that drop very gradualy. Please feel free to pm me at anytime as i'm a few weeks ahead of what your planning to do.

Thanks to all of you for your replies.