Ciltalapram seemed to stop working.. advice please?

[Joshb]

Hi I started taking ciltalapram at the beginning of July due to anxiety, panic attacks and depression following a traumatic life event.

I took 10mg and after a week and for the following 5 weeks it was great. then something triggered a panic attack and I seemed to be back at square one. On the gp''s advice i upped to 20mg and again after a few days all seemed good.

after about 4 weeks I noticed i was not able to sleep very well, and after another trigger event a week ago I spiralled into anxiety and panic and insomnia.

I just went back to the doc and he prescribed me Sertraline 50mg. saying that the citalapram should be helping sleep not stopping it.

So now I am confused as to what to do. I am even considereing weening myself off meds and taking a herbal route such as tumeric and anotisol and other b vits....

any thoughts greatly appreaciated

[LiziJenks]

I am having this problem to at the minute! My doctor prescribed me 20mg initially which worked for a year and then due to a big change I got upped to 30 mg which again worked for a few months and now the panic attacks began again!

Can you body get used to citalopram causing it to stop working? I don't want to be on a higher dose despite knowing that's what the doctor will say!!

[Joshb]

Hi,, I too wonder if your body builds up a tolerance, Like you I do not want to be taking ever increasing doses! Ideally I want to be med free! but i do understand that meds can help while you are fixing the route cause rather than masking the symptoms.

I went to the doc yesterday and he gave me Sertraline 50mg and said to change over the next day. I have not done that today as I wanted advice and thoughts from other members about sertraline and the effects of swapping out. If it looks to be a good option i will change over tommorow

[Britabb]

I have been on 20mg of cipramil daily for 10 yrs. Symptoms came back a month ago. Upped dosage to 30mg 5 days ago and feel awful. Slept all day today and feel like a zombie. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that I'm not alone and it takes time for increased dosage to kick in. Still while ure going through 'it' it's horrible, scary and confuzing.

[NoPoet]

Hi, the bit about SSRIs promoting sleep is BS. They actually reduce it until you get used to the medication. I think it's more to do with the increased anxiety levels you get when starting the medication.

Sertraline 50mg is what I have been moved to. Sert is supposed to be better-tolerated than cit which means you get the same side effects but at a weaker level. I can confirm this, I'm on day 3 and it's been nowhere near as bad as 20mg cit. 50mg is the lowest level of the drug but you should stay at a low level so that you still feel some anxiety, as you will need this to motivate your recovery. It's no good medicating everything away, that's not how we grow or learn, it won't help prevent a relapse and it won't help forge your character.

Remember that medication does NOT fix problems, it just helps you to not worry about them so much. The problems are still there. If you ever want to get off meds and kick anxiety in the crotch, you need to work on bolstering your self confidence, improving your ability to trust and rely on yourself and learning to accept that you may feel crap now, but you will get better, no matter what tricks the weakling wretch known as anxiety might throw at you.

"I am not a prisoner. I am a free man!"