Week 10 Citalopram. Great mood and feel very stable but no improvements in anxiety

[lizamiller95]

Hi there, short background,

Im 22 years old, I took 20-30mg Prozac for 3 years for anxiety before spending months slowly tapering off of it. I was completely clean from Prozac for 3 months when all of my anxiety came back. While Prozac was somewhat effective for anxiety it made me emotionally unstable and unable to see life clearly.

So I started Citalopram. I was on 20mg for 8 weeks and have been on 25mg for 2 weeks. Unlike prozac I feel more stable than usual and in a great mood. Didn't have any side effects at all. But no improvements in anxiety.

However the past two weeks since upping to 25mg, anxiety is waaaay worse and getting physical side effect and I'm distracted and foggy, which I wasn't experiencing on the lower dose. So back to 20mg tomorrow.

When I started Prozac, I was worse at first but after 9 weeks I was starting to feel like wow could be working I'm doing this activity and I feel somewhat chill, and 16 weeks to be like great (great as in 75% cured from anxiety- although emotionally unstable which I couldn't realise at the time)

It just really sucks because I just have this massive fight or flight response like deeply ingrained, and even if I'm not feeling anxious in the slightest on the way there and are thinking yay this will be good fun, genuinely don't think there will be any issues, the second I walk in and see the place my brain goes into overdrive and feels like it's shutting down, my vision gets weird, I feel like I'm going to pass out, literally just want to flee from there, general anxiety etc etc.

I am not working at the moment and started Citalopram the day I quit my job for anxiety. however I have an overseas holiday booked in 3 weeks time (which I hope won't end up being a holiday spent in the hotel room) so I won't change medications until after the holiday if citalopram continues to not work.

Does anyone have any advice in regards to Citalopram being a slow burner? I mean I'm in a great mood and feel very emotionally stable because of it but I cannot live any quality of life with this level of anxiety. I have remained hopeful and positive this whole time but are beginning to doubt it will work for me.

[epitaxial]

I'm on week 10 as well and I noticed a drop in my anxiety levels about a week or so ago [in addition, I read the Dare Response at that time which was a huge help in reducing my anxiety].

Since Citalopram isn't certified to treat anxiety you may need to take an anxiety med along with Citalopram. :(

[lizamiller95]

What sort of meds are certified for anxiety?

[swgrl09]

Could it be you just aren't at the right dose? With lexapro, at 10 mg my depression was fine but I had to go up to 20 mg for the anxiety to improve.

[lizamiller95]

If anything my anxiety has become slightly worse since starting citalopram, and then significantly worse when I upped the dose to 25mg which I stayed on for two weeks so back down to 20 today.

I upped the dose only by 5mg for two weeks and it was absolutely awful so back down to 20. I literally will not be able to cope with it becoming any worse than it is.

[epitaxial]

You may need to try a different SSRI. Talk to your doctor to see what options he/she can provide. In addition - maybe ask to be prescribed anxiety med to help reduce the anxiety levels your having. :(