Missed doses and blips

[teej]

So I just got back from holiday. It was pretty much the most stressful situation I've been under since I started on citalopram since we were staying with many family members in a very cramped cabin. I ended up suffering dreadful anxiety and really poor sleep as everyone snored and my son was ill.

All my routines were broken, I had no contact with any of my friends who've helped me through this and only limited access to the internet which has been such a support.

I was extremely glad to come home on Friday and since then I've just crashed to the point this morning I've just not functioned at all. All the horrible over thinking has come back, my appetite has gone again.

I think to make matters worse I managed to miss a 10mg dose twice last week - so I missed 20mg in a week (I'm on 20mg a day split into two) - and messing around with my dosages does seem to make me feel really bad.

Can anyone else identify with this situation? I'm nearly 6 weeks into my journey now. Looking back at my posts on the 6th I was in a really good place... just feel disappointed I've come down like this.

Of course now I'm wondering if the 20mg / day is enough but really don't want go down the route of messing with the dosage until things have settled down again and I can see the wood for the trees.



And now of course I'm panicking because the whole Christmas/New Year thing I'm going to have to get through when again my routine is going to be utterly trashed again.

The only positive is that I'm really looking forward to a fresh start in 2014.

Sorry for the ramble. Just in need of some replenished hope.

[TRISTAN]

Sorry to hear that mate as you were doing really well , I'm on day 3 of 20mg and feel rough as hell but not sure if it's the coming off the venaflaxine , just want to give up on it all now and also not looking forward to Christmas as I have 3 young children buzzing around at moment :( sad times

---------- Post added at 13:13 ---------- Previous post was at 12:35 ----------

Also lost eight pounds in 2 weeks and was never a big person 11 stone 5 on a good day

[teej]

Yeah, I was on the top of the world by the 6th! I just need to keep the memories of that feeling alive. I was back into a good routine - surrounded by support - I'd had a session of counselling the day, good week at work.

I think I just expected too much of myself too quickly. I've never been a great one for social situations - and this was pretty much a nightmare trapped in this cabin in the middle of nowhere. With our two kids going completely mental - all rule of law fell down and of course I didn't want to let on to family members how I was feeling.

I think kids can be tricky. I've been trying to insulate my two from this as much as possible (they're 2.5 and 3.5) - all they know it's that Dad's just been quite ill - although it's probably an improvement on drunk Dad.

I can imagine 3 days into cit 20mg and coming off the venaflaxine is pretty horrendous. Has your GP given you anything to help you through? I took chlordiazepoxide to get my through the first few weeks although my doc was rather reluctant in prescribing due to my prior addiction problems.

---------- Post added at 13:39 ---------- Previous post was at 13:25 ----------

Also lost eight pounds in 2 weeks and was never a big person 11 stone 5 on a good day

Took about 2 weeks for my appetite to come back - I just made sure that when I could eat, I did eat. One problem I did not have last week was eating though.

I'm about 11 stone 10lbs at the moment - so still about 10lbs overweight and having to watch myself at the moment.

[TRISTAN]

I have diazipan and propananol and even been given sleeping pills now , I am normally bad at weekends as have to much time to dwell on things but the thought of facing work tomorrow is getting me down but I know I need to keep going .

I take 20 mg in the morning , how come you split yours into two doses ?

[teej]

Weekends are by far my worst time too... Too much time to dwell as you say. The consistency of work has really kept me going g though so to have that routine broken has been hard.

I split mine over the day because the doctor thought it would lessen the side effects. Whether or not it did I don't know. Due to the fact that any time I vaguely think about changing the dose or missing a dose I end up feeling rotten I've just kept it like that!

[TRISTAN]

Just fell asleep and woke up and feel worse than ever just want to run away but where ever u go it seems to follow , do you ever get to the stage where you can't calm down ? Just want to stop them now and ride it out :(

[teej]

Stick with it Tristan. I sometimes feel worse after I nap during the day and try and avoid it. I napped on Friday though simply because I was so exhausted.

I've just been out for a walk in the dark to look at the Christmas lights and definitely feeling nowhere near as bad as I did at the beginning of taking the cit. The feelings and thoughts are still there but they're less overwhelming.

Your system is going through a huge flux at the moment coming off one drug and going on to another at the same time.

I know it sounds dumb but have you tried sipping ice cold water or diet lemonade? That's been a real help for me at the moment - seems to just cut through some of the woolyness and really refreshes me. I don't know whether it's just helping my body flush through the toxins or what.

I think I was the only person at the store tonight buying bags of ice!

I certainly don't think at any point even in the last week I've wanted "off" the cit. I was worried it wasn't working for me or that I'd have to put up the dose even. I think about week 4 I was starting to blame the meds and that went.

Stay strong. Grab some icy water and find something funny on TV!

[TRISTAN]

How you doing today ? I made it to work but hard , to many happy people here . Called my care worker and she wasn't much help and basically told me to ride out the side effects :( and get on with it , think she is fed up with me know .

[teej]

Well I'm up and at work. I think it's lifted my mood a lot, although it's very quiet here.

I'm sure your care worker isn't fed up with you! It could be a case that she has no more answers. I'm sure desperate for an end to this roller coaster and my GP is very attentive and kind but he doesn't have a huge number of answers. Maybe she was having a bad morning... happens!

We've just got to stick with I'm afraid. I've made the decision I'm going to persist until the end of January and see where I'm at which'll be 12 weeks for me and then see where I'm at. It seems a life time away but I've struggled on for 6 weeks and I'm sure I can do another 6.

[TRISTAN]

Pinning all my hopes on this one as tried 3 now :( fingers crossed hey