Back-pedalling, blip?

[Anti-socialbutterfly]

This week has been pretty much awful. I've been on citalopram now for about two and a half weeks, not had many side effects apart from sleeplessness and feeling sick durin the first week. Yesterday had a massive argument with my husband, was feeling particularly low and anxious/paranoid. Now feel completely miserable and worthless. Think this may be a blip but not sure, it's horrible. Miserable and have massive negative thoughts. Wish I would go to sleep and not wake up tomorrow. Just wondered if anyone else had felt like this at this stge? Or is it just me and am I just a freak?

[Tanner40]

You're not a freak, Butterfly. You just have anxiety. I have taken citalopram and it takes a couple of months for it to fully kick in and begin to work with your brain chemistry. I know that whenever I have a massive argument with my partner, my anxiety level rises and I can often feel worse the next day. Hang in there and try to think positively. It will all work out if you work at it.

[Anti-socialbutterfly]

Thanks Tanner. I'm just so fed up of being anxious all the time about everything! It's completely ruining my life now. It's ruined me at work, with my friends and is affecting my marriage. I don't want to worry, I try and force myself not to, but it wakes me up in the middle of the night (for example, it's now 4am) and every morning. I can rationally tell myself it's anxiety, and start to calm down after about 2 hours, but it's exhausting and I just want it to go away. I'm at my wits end now x

[Cú Chulainn]

Don't worry if your taking citalopram your still in the early stage's
I didn't see any improvement till week 4
It will get better with the medication over the next few weeks :D
Are you suffering from GAD? OR Panic?

[Anti-socialbutterfly]

Both, and depression x

[TRISTAN]

Me too :(

[TRISTAN]

I don't see this ever getting any better for me and think about how I'm feeling all the time and can't switch off was even thinking about self sectioning myself but couldn't do it to my boys and wife , how long will it take to find out if this Is the med for me or not ? Any advice welcome x

[cheshirecatqee]

It can take about 2-3 months to work so hang in there but look for some kind of therapy as meds only help so much and if you want to come off them you need to find out what caused the anxiety as it will keep coming back.

[Cú Chulainn]

3 Months is a bit of a long time but by two months you should be seeing some if not a lot of improvement.
If not speak to a GP and switch to another AD
He's right about counselling or CBT depending on your needs.

[TRISTAN]

I asked for counselling but can't start till settled on meds :( fingers crossed

[TRISTAN]

How you doing now butterfly ?

[Anti-socialbutterfly]

Hey there, I'm a bit better now Christmas is out of the way thanks.

I've definitely discovered that having a drink whilst taking this medication is NOT a good idea! Went on a pub crawl on the Sunday before Christmas and had a few drinks on Christmas Day. Both nights and the days afterwards were absolutely horrific! Massively high anxiety, no sleep at all in the night, feeling very low and plenty of horrid intrusive thoughts and guilt. Suffice to say, I will not be drinking for the foreseeable future whilst taking Citalopram!!

How was your Christmas? Did you manage to keep up the front for your kids? Hope you're ok x

[teej]

I've definitely discovered that having a drink whilst taking this medication is NOT a good idea! Went on a pub crawl on the Sunday before Christmas and had a few drinks on Christmas Day. Both nights and the days afterwards were absolutely horrific! Massively high anxiety, no sleep at all in the night, feeling very low and plenty of horrid intrusive thoughts

Oh yes - glad someone else had this. :blush:

I slipped up on Christmas day - people pushing alcohol in my face all day - I ended up drinking waaayyy too much. I slept well but the rebound anxiety the next day was horrific - worse than anything I've ever had in my life. I also noticed that I ended up with some of the start-up symptoms back from the citalopram for the next few days - no appetite, tremors, anxiety, depersonalisation. (not drink related ones - I can tell :blush:)

In my uneducated opinion - an excess of alcohol seems to entirely stop citalopram from working for me and actually puts me back into startup symptom territory.

I was going to make a thread about this but I felt too ashamed so I'll hide my confession here.

T

[TRISTAN]

Yeah Christmas was good , put on my brave face and kids loved it , back to work today and finding it v hard today and just want to go home :(