Increasing my dose?

[julia241977]

I've been taking 5 mg Lexapro for about a year and a half now. It's definitely helping, but I still get anxious a lot and therapy isn't an accessible option for me right now (that's a whole other thing that I don't want to get into). I'm due to see my GP (who prescribed the medication in the first place). Would it be worthwhile to ask about increasing my dosage? What have been your experiences? Has increasing dosage helped?

[Phill2]

I've been on 10mg for years and it works well

[panic_down_under]

I'm due to see my GP (who prescribed the medication in the first place). Would it be worthwhile to ask about increasing my dosage?

Definitely, as 10mg is the recommended minimum therapeutic dose. 5mg is the usual starter dose which should have been increased after 7-10 days. Sub therapeutic dosing can increase the risk of antidepressants pooping-out.

Antidepressants (ADs) work by stimulating the growth of *new brain cells (neurogenesis) to replace cells killed, or prevented from growing by high brain stress hormone levels. The therapeutic response is produced by these new cells and the stronger interconnections they forge, not the ADs directly, and this requires that plasma levels remain high enough to initiate and sustain the process. Low doses may interrupt neurogenesis whenever the AD plasma level drops below the required threshold.

* Depression and the Birth and Death of Brain Cells (PDF (https://www.americanscientist.org/sites/americanscientist.org/files/20057610584_306.pdf))