Same Medication Second Time Around...Successful or Unsuccessful???

[violet12]

Hi All

This subject seems to keep popping up all the time so I thought it might be interesting to do a poll.

[nicola1980]

Just voted :-) i couldn't tolerate cit second time around, it made me a hundred times worse :-( wish id never come off it in the first place! X x

[ricardo]

We can fly a man to the moon, pinpoint exactly where a person is in the world by their mobile phone but there just isn't a perfect medication for all forms of mental illness.
So many of us are dependent on medication to get a quality of life to varying degrees and some accept that, others do recover and become drug free only to relapse again sometime later (as in my case).
We all know that we have to do most of the hard work to achieve our various goals and medication only masks the problem.
is it in ones genes, or general make up,a trauma, did we inherit these anxiety symptoms ?
I have been asked this a thousand times by professionals and friends and I truly don't know the answer.
What I do know is that as one gets older it gets more difficult to answer and in my case plays on my mind constantly.

[violet12]

Hi and thank you for your votes. Early days but interesting results so far!

I too had been medication free for 5 years with only minor blips! So when I recently relapsed I'd assumed that my previous med would work as well as it had done before. Have always been sensitive to SSRI's and thought I'd found the magic potion with Escit, but even though I only started on 5 mg I couldn't tolerate it...anxiety through the roof. I persevered for 3 weeks but it was hell on earth. Hence it got me to thinking how common this is.

[steveo]

11 years on Citalopram for me. A 6 month ween last year. Off meds in October 2012. From then on, my life slowly went downhill. Things hit the fan in January this year and went back on 20mg Cit. It was HELL on earth! I persevered for 2 months. Couldn't handle it anymore. Switched to Escit. Not sure if that's really working at all either. I'm worse now than I've ever been in my life. Not sure what medication to go through the hell of trying next.

[violet12]

Hi Steveo

I've been following your withdrawal from diazapam posts and I'm sorry to hear what you are going through at the moment. One of the reasons I wanted to run the poll is because I'm sure my doc thought I was making a fuss when I said I just couldn't tolerate it. I was even prepared for a rough ride so its not like I didn't know what to expect. I really don't think Doc's are aware of the size of this problem!

[citalopram1]

I still feel low after 4 weeks on 10mg and 5 weeks on 20mg citalopram. I have mentioned to my doctor about upping the dose or maybe a different med and they have just dismissed it. I really want to get my life back and get back to work.

[AuntieMoosie]

I was on Citalopram for many years.

Then last year I became quite depressed and was told that the Citalopram was no longer working.

I was put back on Sertraline, I had been on that for many years before the Citalopram.

Coming off of the Citalopram was pure utter hell, in every sense of the word, I ended up with SSRI Withdrawal Syndrome and I was ill for months :weep:

I also found that Citalopram was the worse SSRI for making you emotionally dead, I know that all of the SSRI's have this effect, but for me, Citalopram was far worse, I'd never entertain going back on it again.

I've had success again with the Sertraline with regards to the anxiety mainly, but I'm still struggling with the depression a bit, but that could be where I've had a few shaky moments of late.

Ricardo I believe that it's possibly in our genes and due to trauma, especially if we've had childhood trauma which has involved separation from parents, I definitely think that leaves a mark on our minds.

Depression and anxiety are rife in my family, but us older ones have another thing in common and that is childhood trauma through separation.

I really don't know, it's all very confusing. I also often ask myself, is it the medication making it worse?? I've already been told that I'll be on antidepressants for the rest of my life, as every time they've tried to take me off of them, I've relapsed usually to the point that I have to be admitted to hospital.

I have a fear, and please remember, it's only my fear, it's not proven and it's not fact, it's just a fear of mine that's all, that once we start taking SSRI's our brains kind of need that drug forever. I think people who are only on them for a short time seem to be okay, but the ones of us that have been on them long term never seem to be able to come off the things ????.........just a theory anyway :)

[Sparkle1984]

Its my 2nd time on cit but its taken longer to work this time round, and I also need a higher dose than I did the first time (20 mg instead of 10mg). I've felt better in the last few days, although I'm still not quite back to how I was feeling earlier this year (when I was on cit the first time). I think I'm still improving though, and so I believe I will get back to how I was the first time around.

[Emphyrio]

I took prozac from 2003-2008, cold turkeyed it, had an 8 month gap, then successfully restarted it. So I voted yes.

However, the third time around, it had a whole load of nasty side effects such as agitation and a non-existent libido. However, I had tried other meds in the gap between my 2nd and 3rd prozac saga - one of which, citalopram, was discontinued probably too quickly (even though I'd only taken it for 6 weeks) leaving me feeling agitated, anxious, and hypersensitive to any small bodily changes. So I guess the third time on prozac was different in that my anxiety was really bad when I started taking it again.