Anyone experienced bad reactions to alcohol within the 1st week of Citalopram?

[Dylan123]

Hi everybody, new to the forum :).

Was wondering if anyone had problems with bad reactions to alcohol in the early stages of Citalopram and if so do these improve over time?

I felt pretty awful over the first few days of starting cit, but improved dramitacly SE-wise on day 4 and decide to have 1 can of beer. It was a bad move because it made my headache, spaced out feeling, hightnend anxiety etc come back with a vengeance.

It's the next day now and I feel that I have taken a step backwards again with the effects.

Has anyone drank alcohol in the early stages and not had any problems?

[TooMuchToLiveFor]

Hi Dylan,
I am sure there are cases where drinking early on has not had an ill effect, but overall the general consensus definitely seems to be that it is not a good idea.

Do a search on here for SSRI and Alcohol, or Citalopram and Alcohol. There are many, many threads discussing this topic.

Hang in there- you will keep moving forward if you keep your eyes on the goal line. :)

[Dylan123]

Thanks :)

[lisha371]

I was on Citalopram for a few years and drinking alcohol wasn't a problem in fact still got drunk of a weekends no problems.

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's different by SSRI/SNRI, some say avoid, some say be careful to judge the affects.

I think they interact in different ways for different people. I looked for this for mine, Duloxetine, and found some people got hammered on far less and even acted out of character, some felt a need to drink more, others had terrible handovers & rebound style effects and other had no issue.

So, it might be an individual thing.

What I would say is, these things can have some very strange affects over the first few weeks so I don't think you can really judge it yet. Get past the first month with the SE's and then judge it.

By day 4 when I was on Citalopram my anxiety was far worse so it could be you thought you had got past the SE's, but were just having a break...I can remember having that later in week 2 but then it changed again. So, it can be quite individual.

[MJD]

Can't comment on alcohol and cital, just know that after two days on it had the worst panic attack at the gym that I've ever had. Got to the point where gym staff were about to call an ambulance. Will be giving that gear a body swerve in future.