Switching from Citalopram to Sertraline - cross tapering?

[no_name]

Hi, i've been on 40mg of Citalopram for 2 months now (after being on 20mg for 1.5yrs before that) but it doesn't help a lot and the Dr. wants to switch me to Sertraline. I am supposed to cross taper the medications every 2 days, 30mg Cit+25mg Sertr, 20mg Cit+50mg Sertr, 10mg Cit+75mg Sertr and then 100mg Sertraline permanently. Have anyone switched that way SSRI to SSRI and should i expect some bad SEs (i've taken Citalopram several times for the last 8 years and suffered almost no side effects) or anything serious (serotonin syndrome??)? Any info would be appreciated, especially given the fact i suffer health anxietyand every new medicine drives me crazy about my health...

[haz]

Hi,

I cross-tapered from Seroxat to escitalopram with no signifcant side effects. I thought the withdrawl from Seroxat would be awful, given it's reputation, but I was completely off it and onto escitalopram in a week. My psychiatrist says switching from one ssri to another wouldn't cause any side effects as they are "effectively all the same". Not sure I agree with the latter as some drugs clearly work better for some people than others and he obviously must have thought so too or he wouldn't have switched me!

Good Luck!

[no_name]

Thank for the reply! Hope my switching goes normally with no side effects

[no_name]

WOW, it's been an awful switch!!! I am taking Sertraline only (100mg) for 2 days now and the things are settling down gradually, but the previous week was a nightmare! It turns out this combination of citalopram and sertraline was somehow horrible for me (to say the least), i could hardly manage to sustain the side effects... Well, i guess it's my fault as i didn't take flupenthixol tablets (which the Dr. prescribed me) because of worries about their SEs. I suffered from my own stupidity, so listen to your Dr.