stopping citalopram

[didyoufindit]

Hi, I am new here and just been reading other`s stories about coming off citalopram. I am in to my fourth week slowly reducing but found it very hard so saw doctor yesterday who asked me to drop from 40mg to 20 for two days then stop altogether (originally I was taking 50mg).

I feel whiped out, aching limbs, head all over place, headache, dizzy you name it! but i am determined to carry on and be rid of these tablets as I have been on them for about 10 years now.

Thankyou for sharing your stories as they have helped me a great deal.:)

Yorkshire Girl

[Baggs]

Welcome to the site.

Baggs

[Britabb]

Welcome. U will find a lot of support here.

Xx

[T2711]

I don't want to scare you, but that's a little crazy going from such a high dose to nothing over such a short period. I literally could not stand it when I dropped from 10mg to nothing, I had to go back to 10 and then after about 3 weeks did 10/5 alternately. I then went to 5 every day and am now trying 4mg. Not sure I'm coping too well even with such a small drop so I would advise you to try taking 10 for a while until you feel stable and then dropping to 5mg and then seeing how it goes.

I really was shocked to find out how bad the discontinuation symptoms are to be honest. Who would think such a small tablet could cause that much trouble!

Best of luck - I hope you are one of the lucky ones who can come off quickly without too much trouble!

[Jamesn]

Hi - yes I agree - thats too fast. Doctors need to read about the weening off process and be a bit more realistic about the gradual drop.

I was on 20mg for about 9 months, i felt good so i decided to ween off them in agreement with a doctor. She said alternate (one on - one off). Didn't work great(basically as this is halving your dose and sending you up and down every day) so i went back to see another doctor who suggested 20mg one day and 10mg another and the after two weeks 20mg and 2 days of 10mg and so on. I am down to half a dose now (10mg per day). I didn't hardly notice a thing so i am going to remain at this dose until after christmas and complete the same exercise until i'm off them.

Hopefully this will work but i won't get hung up on the process. It will take as long as it takes.

Good luck with yours - don't rush it. Plenty of time.

Natalie