Week two!

[Loobeyloo]

Hi

My dr told me to take citalopram for my nerves and panic. Not a but fan of tablets but could feel I could go on. Monday is my 2nd week and what a hard few weeks.

After the frist few day I had bad dry mouth ( I have been very dehydrate for a while anyway!) but this was silly. Sleeping not so great either.

4days had a massive panic attack at the cinema went to hospital in thinking I was having a heart attack did lots of test (was in there for 9 hours) every thing came back as fine :shrug:

Saturday was probs my best day in a long time, didn't feel as unblanced as I usually do. So things are looking up.

Just a question when is it best to take as I have been taking frist thing in the morning? Is this best?

Thanks

:)

[Insight]

Hello

I take mine in the evening on the advice of somebody on another forum,he figured that you'd be asleep as the strongest effects of the drug were coursing through your body so i went with that.
Sounds like you've had a rough time of it lately,glad to read that you are feeling a bit better :)

[Loobeyloo]

Yeah been a rough time tbh. Just trying to put on a smile and get though the day.

Ahh that make sense, if I change times do u think that will affect the dose or effectiveness of it??
:)

[Sunshine77]

Well done Loobyloo, glad it's improving. I'm on Citalopram too and it's definitely made a difference.

Insight - how do you feel in the mornings after taking it at night? Does it affect your sleep at all? I ask because I take mine in the morning but mornings are my absolute worst time anxiety-wise. I wake up with such panic on a daily basis. I have wondered if taking it at night would mean a higher level of the drug in my body when I awaken? But then I also heard it can disrupt your sleep and cause nightmares (although I have them anyway tbh!)?

xx

[karenp]

I've taken Citalopram both morning and night time and it really made no difference....it also made me have terrible panic attacks when I first started on it too but really got me 100% better (:

[Loobeyloo]

Hey sunshine glad to hear you are doing well! I feel like I am getting somewhere tbh starting to feel a bit better.
Just need to get the sleeping better I think now!

Hi karenp glad to hear ur better can't wait to feel like that again I might just carry on taking it in the morning then

Thanks
:)

[Insight]

Yeah been a rough time tbh. Just trying to put on a smile and get though the day.

Ahh that make sense, if I change times do u think that will affect the dose or effectiveness of it??
:)

I'm really not sure it was just when i first started i took it in the morning and was getting a compulsion to keep clenching my feet and hands.Some guy told me to switch to evening time and things improved but of course they might have anyway :/


Well done Loobyloo, glad it's improving. I'm on Citalopram too and it's definitely made a difference.

Insight - how do you feel in the mornings after taking it at night? Does it affect your sleep at all? I ask because I take mine in the morning but mornings are my absolute worst time anxiety-wise. I wake up with such panic on a daily basis. I have wondered if taking it at night would mean a higher level of the drug in my body when I awaken? But then I also heard it can disrupt your sleep and cause nightmares (although I have them anyway tbh!)?

xx

I'm in quite a bad sleep pattern of late but no nightmares tho i seem to dream an awful lot about real life anxiety inducing situations tho i think that would be the case without citalopram.
It would make sense to me that especially in your case it might be a good idea to try taking them at night so you wake with the full effects in place.

Mornings aren't great for me,it takes a seemingly herculean effort for me to get my arse in gear if i have an appointment to get to lol.
Once i tell myself off and get myself moving i don't feel too drowsy tho.:)

[Sunshine77]

Thanks guys, I think I'll just keep taking them in the morning and see if things improve, Don't want to disrupt my poor body any more than it already is!!

Good luck to you all x

[ozz]

Hi folks new to all this, started last Monday on the drug and am passing way more urine than normal and having to drink upwards of 8 litres of water a day. Is this normal? :huh:

[NorthernGeek]

Just starting my third week on Citalopram 20mg & sadly I still feel in the pit of despair. I saw my doctor yesterday & when I said that I hadn't felt any improvement whatsoever yet, he seemed slightly disappointed & told me to just stick with it. I don't think he was really expecting me to have started feeling better already, he was just more concerned about how I was coping.

I didn't actually get to speak to my Doctor for that long, as half of the appointment was taken up by a medical student who I agreed to see first as part of his training. I really hope the student's empathy skills improve a lot before he qualifies, as he didn't seem to understand how I was feeling at all.

Both my Doctor & the student asked me whether I had thoughts of harming myself so I explained that since I am also a carer & have someone who is completely dependent on me, that is not an option no matter how desperate or terrible I feel. This is also a great source of stress though, as I always feel inadequate as a carer & constantly worry obsessively about what might happen in the future if anything happened to me.

The truth is that it is almost impossible for anyone else to understand unless they have also experienced severe depression. It's especially difficult to describe to people that for most of my life I have had an internal bully telling me that I am useless & pathetic, or that I always feel that no-one ever really accepts me & I am permanently an outsider. I have tried explaining it to both my Mum & a close friend in the last few days, but they just couldn't comprehend what I was saying & seemed quite worried.

Since my crisis three weeks ago that finally triggered the inevitable breakdown I had been resisting for so many years, I have been in the pit of despair & permanently feel on the verge of crying.

I really hope the Citalopram starts to have a positive effect before Xmas though, as I am afraid of ruining it for the rest of my family by being so obviously ill.

[teej]

It's early days NorthernGeek by all accounts. I had no real positive moments until I reached week three and I've crashed again this weekend sadly through a number of factors.

A lot of people seem to be saying 5 - 7 weeks before any really good changes so keep positive. I'm supposed to be going on holiday in two weeks so I'm really hoping I'm going to have settled a bit by then, so hopefully you'll be good for Christmas?

I think I'm about a week ahead of you in my medication so I'll keep posting my experiences.

The only thing I will say relevant to this thread is don't mess with doses (unless your GP says so). Even moving my dose from 9pm to 9am seems to have caused me a huge hiccup this weekend (I effectively jumped from 20mg to 40mg overnight stupidly). Well possibly... see my thread I started on this.