Down to 10mgs and want to reduce further.

[pheetuz]

Hey folks.

At my gps advice i have decided to come off of citalopram, gp reconed that it was exasterbating my symptoms of anxiety and not doing me any good.

Have spent to last two weeks getting down to 10mgs (from 20mgs) without too many major symptoms, ie panic attacks. Although, i have had a few bad days feeling depressed, generally i feel great, better than i have in months

My gp said that once i was stabilised on 10mgs that i should be able to just stop without any negative effects, but if theres one thing ive learned from this whole citalopram experience, the gps word isnt gospel lol. So i asked him for another weeks worth of 10mg tablets to slow the process down more.

Anyway, basically i want to get down to 5mgs and stop from there, i was wondering what the best way was to do this.

Their were two ways that i could think of doing it and they were to cut the tablets in half (which is a bit of a pain) or to take 1 10mg tablet every other day ???

Could anyone shed any light on which route they think is less likely to cause side effects???

Many thanks

/Pete

[KK77]

I think you're wise to reduce to 5mg rather than stop at 10mg. I stopped cold turkey and though it wasn't pleasant I'm a bit of a masochist so don't do it.

Cutting the 10mg in half is your best bet because these meds aren't designed to be taken every other day. You'll end up with mild withdrawals. Stopping at 5mg, once you're ready, hopefully won't cause you any withdrawal symptoms.