Citalopram and sleep

[tiff]

Have been on Citalopram for 5 weeks, first 4 weeks at 20mg then went to the GP last week as Im really struggling to sleep and she didnt want to give me sleeping tablets and said I need counselling and had the option to increase my dose to 40mg. Just wondering what other people have experienced with their GP as increasing the dose is going to take a while to improve my sleep if it in fact does anything at all!

[Lilac58]

Hi.

I've been on Cit for coming up to 2 years, but I do remember it causing insomnia at the start, which is common. Of course the reason it is started in the first place can be a cause of not sleeping.

I went up from 20 to 30 to 40 to help my symptoms of depression, 40 worked and that's what I have stayed on. But I take something else for anxiety and the effect of that helps me sleep.

If you are having trouble sleeping, I'm not sure how upping Cit will help, you have to be guided by your doctor, but Cit is not really a sleep helping drug.

Good luck!

[arfasc]

When I have period of problems with sleep + citalopram I take low doses of amytriptiline.
After struggling many years I found it effective.

Good luck!

[tiff]

She doesnt seem very helpful, I specifically asked for an anti depressant that didnt affect my sleep and when I got home and looked up Cit, couldnt believe it. Im going to keep going on 40mg until I go back to see her in 6 weeks but thats a long time away really. SHe kept going on about treating the cause (having counselling) which I will do but when I feel better.

---------- Post added at 21:01 ---------- Previous post was at 20:56 ----------


When I have period of problems with sleep + citalopram I take low doses of amytriptiline.
After struggling many years I found it effective.

Good luck!

Thanks, I will ask about this and other options next time, just wasnt sure what other people take as she said there wasnt really anything I could have as sleeping tablets are addictive.

[GBFast]

I agree with you about the sleep.

Going from 20mg to 40mg appears to have nullified the 10mg of Zolpidem I was taking nightly (and which was generally getting me a good 7-8 hours' sleep).

:-/

[DELIBY99]

This is a tricky one. I started on 20MG four months ago and after the initial side affects settled i was sleeping like a log. I still had bad anxiety so the doc upped my dose to 30MG which through my sleep out of wack. It was difficult. I went through a phase of either being awake all night or waking up crazy early and not being able to get off to sleep again. I was given sleeping tabs at the early stages but they didn't work for me. I'd fall asleep for two hours and then wake suddenly like a light switch being turned on. I also didn't want to go down the road of being reliant on more pills. The only thing that worked for me was taking lots of exercise, cutting out caffeine and going to bed at the same time every night. I also tried hard to work through the things in my life that were causing me to be anxious. Now four months in I feel normal and sleep well. CIT will certainly interupt your sleep that is why it is important to think carefully before upping the dose, as with each increase the side effects increase. If you haven't settled on 20MG after 6 weeks then maybe it is time to try 30MG. It will take a few weeks to settle into an increase so don't be put off if you feel worse at first. If the sleep problem does not settle you may have to try another drug.

[tiff]

Well this happened last week and I increased from 20mg to 40mg on Wednesday last week. Luckily I dont have any side effects and havent noticed a difference at all after the increase. The last couple of nights Ive slept ok, apart from waking a bit too early but then Ive been exhausted as my husband had gallbladder pain and we were up very late on Saturday night/Sun as he was admitted to hospital.