Cipralex - side effects and timing

[darlinggirl]

Hi,

I have been prescribed Cipralex for Depression/anxiety. Side effects from 10mg on first day were bad - could not have gone to work. Took 5mg instead, but still feel very very odd. Like I am having rushes and getting spaced out, hot and cold and just generally really strange.

Taking them very early in the morning on an empty stomach - as I have no appetite.

Does anyone take these meds later in the day or the evening and if so does this help or does it just keep you awake?

thanks.x

[Moob]

Hiya

I have been on them for 3 months now 10mg.
They did make me feel weird and rubbish to start with..but you do start to feel better as time goes on.
I take them first thing in the morning as thats wat has been prescribed.
You can take them on an empty stomach..i read it in the leaflet u get with the meds...hav a look on yours. :)

Stick with it, it does get better :yesyes:

[darlinggirl]

thanks for reply, trouble is I cannot work properly when suffering from these side effects and I cannot be off work at the moment! Has anyone taken them at night?

[alias_kev]

There is no published requirement that I know of for what time of day you take Escitalpram = Cipralex, etc. The normal requirement is to take it as a single daily dose - more on this in a moment. There is no specific rule for food either.

Quite a lot of people seem to suffer nausea with the pills although I'm inclined to think that our underlying anxiety, depression & stress or panic is bound to provide quite a lot of that itself. Maybe the pills just let it out. On the other hand I found I needed to eat since the pills seem to destabilise my blood sugar a bit and that was already pretty wonky for me anyway. Despite an OK blood test I get a lot of high/low sugar swings and the pills seemed to make the dips lower. So I now always aim to have snack or meal before taking the tablets.

As I was still struggling to (get to & stay) asleep with a morning dose at 10mg - an original symptom of my anxiety & worries - my GP put me upto 20mg BUT I take the second 10mg at night. This makes it the maximum dose (for Esc') but unusually split into 2 doses. I've been mildly worried that everything I can find says "single dose" but its helped me a lot so I've been trusting him.

Some people say the meds make it hard to sleep. I had a lot of active worries that kept me awake at night, so the meds definately help me sleep. Infact to begin with I was very sleepy in the day as well, but I was the same before I started the meds so its hard to allocate blame.

All the other symptoms you mention are pretty common. They are documented as lasting for quite a few weeks as your brain readjusts to the chemicals.

Good luck with this. If you need to ask more - please do or PM if you want it private.

One last thought - definately don't vary the amount you take too often or at all fast, the extra fluctuations in the active dosage in your body will play havoc. Slow and steady is the normal rule.

[bab]

hi there
i have been on this for about 6 months and i had the most horrible effects but they do pass after a couple of weeks and i know its hard but you must persevere as you will start to feel better soon and the horrid effects will start t go

[mlondon]

Hi

I take them at night as I don't think I could deal with the effects in the morning as I have to go to work. It does keep me awake though so I have started taking them early evening around 6 when I get home, this is better. Also eating when you take them helps to reduce the side effects.

It does get better!

[shakingleaf]

I was just given this medication.... Should I wait until tomorrow morning to start them or can I start today?

[bab]

hi shakingleaf - i take mine in the evening x

[alias_kev]

I was just given this medication.... Should I wait until tomorrow morning to start them or can I start today?Assuming you are on one dose a day (99% of people I think) then it does not matter. Ideally you should be consistent about what time of day you take them in future, so that normally they are about 24 hrs apart.

Some people (me) find a late evening dose helps them sleep others find that an evening dose disrupts their sleep. It depends on how your brain reacts to variations in the active dose in your body.

It usually takes a while (weeks) to get the full effect with the least side effects so be prepared for that. Some find the early weeks hard as they get quite fierce side effects.

So take care and come back if you want more info. The older posts in the forum may give you an insight to what you will feel.

[shakingleaf]

thank you both.

[Parsifal]

I might as well throw in a reply of my own here, since I've been on this med for exactly 6 weeks today. I was under the impression that it would take only a couple of weeks before I would see the real effect and be rid of most of the side effects. The side effects were horrible at first - there was no way I could have gone to work. I couldn't drive, watch TV or even read a couple of lines of text without feeling terrible (communicating on this forum was quite a challenge). After one and a half week the side effects had not decreased, and I started to doubt the 2 week promise would hold. I asked a couple of people here on the forum and they both said the same thing: 6-8 weeks before the side effects go away. So now that I've been on them for 6 weeks I must admit that they were right. I still feel just a tiny bit nauseous during the day, but not so much that it bothers me. The only side effect that still bothers me is the inability to stay asleep. I still wake up several times a night, but usually I fall right back to sleep. Some times, however, I will wake up with a feeling of "going mad", and that is quite uncomfortable. I never had any problem with sleeping until I started on Cipralex.

We're all different in the way we react to these chemicals, and while some people don't experience side effects at all even without gradually increasing their dose, there are people like me that are rendered unable to work for weeks. I don't say that you'll have to cope with this for two whole months, but that has been the case with others as well as myself, so don't despair should this take more than just a couple of weeks.

As for the dose, I found out that splitting my dose (10mg) into 5mg doses that I take 12 hours apart gave the least amount of side effects.

Be patient, positive and optimistic. Keep a log of the good days and the bad days, and you'll see a steady increase in the good ones. That's part of what got me through these couple of months. Good luck :)

[Cipralex User]

Hiya, iv only been taking cipralex for 5 days & iv been taking them at night, i'm only 23 and i wake up in the night severel times & i have never had any problems sleepin' untill i took these tablets. When i do manage to get to sleep i grind my teeth in the night which i never did untill again taking these tablets it wakes my partner, but dosnt wake me. I also feel as tho im comin' down off an extercy tablet on these. Does any-one have these problems?.

[bab]

hi there
its still early days and its just the initial side effects - this will pass