DoodleDoo
10-08-16, 03:59
I'm posting this in case it might help anybody.
I went in the space of 18 months from being an incredibly confident person, able to present to huge audiences and deal with any situation, to an absolute mess of a person with wild panic / anxiety attacks on an almost daily basis. Very bad thoughts made me question wanting to go on. I found myself pacing up and down, banging my head off walls, and generally not seeing any future and not really wanting to be around any more. This was caused by lots of bad situations and sheer bad luck in this short time, after decades of a very nice life where I'd had no problems at all.
I managed to hide this from work, and continued to function until I had what I guess was a small breakdown. This timed with my two week holiday, so instead of signing off, I went to the doctors and was given Citalopram 10mg and took these while on holiday (basically 2 weeks where all I had to do was sunbathe and sleep.) The advice was to move to 20mg as soon as I could cope.
I reckon I got ALL of the side effects... but being on holiday where I had to do nothing ... be responsible for nothing ... meant that the side effects didn't really impact on me. My expectation was that within 4 to 6 weeks, any side-effects would be gone, so I basically had a 2-week head start on them where I didn't have to deal with real life because I wasn't at work or home.
Back to work, after the 2 weeks holiday, the side-effects did not subside ... I won't pretend it was easy - these tablets made me dizzy, nauseous, diarrhoea, wierd dreams, and made me put on weight even though I had no appetite and ate nothing. By week 6 I was still feeling the same way - that is - the tablets weren't helping at all. I was ready to give up.
This is now week 8 (on 20mg now) and finally the side-effects have gone away completely. The anxiety/panic has almost totally gone away. They DO work, but you need to give them time. You have to accept the fact that they will NOT make you better in 2,3,4 weeks. I now feel normal maybe 95% of the time. They do kick in after about 2 months - this looks like a long time to wait, but it is nothing compared to what I had to endure over the previous 18 months without them.
So - basically - saying, don't give up. I'm not saying they have made me extra happy - they haven't - I'm saying they have definitely taken away the terror / panic / anxiety that I had felt all the time I had before I took them. I'm not the person I was, but I'm not far from it.
Long story short - stick with it. If you have my experience, you will feel no better for 6 weeks plus, but then suddenly you feel better. Don't give up on the first 3 days or even weeks when you perhaps even feel worse than you did before - how I feel now is a million times better than I did before I took the Citalopram. Please feel free to msg me if you have questions - I know what you are going through. I can see a good future now - I even start a new job next week and it does not phase me at all.
Hope this helps.
I went in the space of 18 months from being an incredibly confident person, able to present to huge audiences and deal with any situation, to an absolute mess of a person with wild panic / anxiety attacks on an almost daily basis. Very bad thoughts made me question wanting to go on. I found myself pacing up and down, banging my head off walls, and generally not seeing any future and not really wanting to be around any more. This was caused by lots of bad situations and sheer bad luck in this short time, after decades of a very nice life where I'd had no problems at all.
I managed to hide this from work, and continued to function until I had what I guess was a small breakdown. This timed with my two week holiday, so instead of signing off, I went to the doctors and was given Citalopram 10mg and took these while on holiday (basically 2 weeks where all I had to do was sunbathe and sleep.) The advice was to move to 20mg as soon as I could cope.
I reckon I got ALL of the side effects... but being on holiday where I had to do nothing ... be responsible for nothing ... meant that the side effects didn't really impact on me. My expectation was that within 4 to 6 weeks, any side-effects would be gone, so I basically had a 2-week head start on them where I didn't have to deal with real life because I wasn't at work or home.
Back to work, after the 2 weeks holiday, the side-effects did not subside ... I won't pretend it was easy - these tablets made me dizzy, nauseous, diarrhoea, wierd dreams, and made me put on weight even though I had no appetite and ate nothing. By week 6 I was still feeling the same way - that is - the tablets weren't helping at all. I was ready to give up.
This is now week 8 (on 20mg now) and finally the side-effects have gone away completely. The anxiety/panic has almost totally gone away. They DO work, but you need to give them time. You have to accept the fact that they will NOT make you better in 2,3,4 weeks. I now feel normal maybe 95% of the time. They do kick in after about 2 months - this looks like a long time to wait, but it is nothing compared to what I had to endure over the previous 18 months without them.
So - basically - saying, don't give up. I'm not saying they have made me extra happy - they haven't - I'm saying they have definitely taken away the terror / panic / anxiety that I had felt all the time I had before I took them. I'm not the person I was, but I'm not far from it.
Long story short - stick with it. If you have my experience, you will feel no better for 6 weeks plus, but then suddenly you feel better. Don't give up on the first 3 days or even weeks when you perhaps even feel worse than you did before - how I feel now is a million times better than I did before I took the Citalopram. Please feel free to msg me if you have questions - I know what you are going through. I can see a good future now - I even start a new job next week and it does not phase me at all.
Hope this helps.