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.