Back on Citalopram - Increasing dose & side effects

[TillyBoo07]

I came off Citalopram last summer, (with my GP's guidance), after being on it for 7 years. My anxiety gradually started to return but I thought I could cope. Early in December I was rushed in to hospital for an emergency appendectomy. The whole experience was incredibly traumatic for various reasons. On Boxing Day I started having full blown panic attacks again. The following day I started taking 20mg of Cit again. I had kept some back from last time just in case and last Monday (30th Dec), I managed to get an appointment with my GP. She agreed that 20mg was fine and wants to see me again in a fortnight with a view to increasing to 30mg. That means I'll have been on 20mg for 3 weeks. I feel I need to increase my dose now. My side effects, (virtually everything in the very common section of the medication leaflet plus a few from the other sections), have abated slightly but I seem to be cycling between one good day where I feel almost normal and then a really bad day with terrible anxiety, shaking, nausea, retching, vomiting etc. The GP also gave me a 2mg 3 x a day of Diazapam to try and relax me but it made me ten times worse and I only took two doses. Anyone else had that?

I guess my question is how soon did people have their dose increased by their GP and did your side effects become worse again? Last time I was on Cit 30mg seemed to be the dose that suited me best but I can't remember how soon he increased it.

Thank you.

[Follow The Sun]

Hi Tilly. It's rubbish isn't it? I'm back on for the second time too and going through the rollercoaster of good day, bad day, worse day, good day etc! I haven't been up to 30mg but went from 10 to 20 after a couple of weeks. But I've never had issues with changing the dose. I know some people find increasing the dose is hard. I was given valium once, I can't remember the dose. It was for panic attacks to get me through a wedding and it just made me feel sleepy! I was still anxious but was too dozy to really notice.

Hope you feel ok today.

[teej]

I've been pondering moving up to 30mg since before Christmas (my Doc has given me the all clear on it) but I've been too scared of messing up my current "ok" state of mind.

I've messed with my dose 3 times now - first time I accidentally took 40mg in a day and I was a mess the next day and ended up back on chlordiazepoxide. The second two times I've forgotten a dose and had a bad blip afterwards.

So yes - I'm worried about the same thing too.

As for 2mg of diazepam - well it did nothing for me. 4mg took the edge off a little. I gave up on it at that point as the doctor only gave me 28mg in total. :roflmao:

[TillyBoo07]

Thanks for your replies. Last I slept for 8 hours only waking twice and was able to get back to sleep quickly. Today has been a good day but I'm dreading tomorrow in case it's a bad day.