Citalopram & Sleeping Problem

[maks]

Hi,

Looking for some advice - I am currently on 20mg Citalopram taken every evening - 1 month in - it's my second time of taking them in a year with about a 6 month break from the last time. At the end of taking them last time, I was taking 40mg a day first thing in the morning and that worked for me, but the side effect of being really tired all day and struggling to concentrate caused me to stop taking them all-together when things got better.

I am taking the dose at night shortly before I would usually go to sleep as I've read a lot of information that suggests that the side effect of tiredness during the day would be lessened by this approach and as the medication has quite a long half-life, the positive effects should still be present during the day.

The problem I currently have is, I can't get into any pattern of sleep at the moment and if I sleep at the 'wrong' times, I'm not getting any benefit - I know it's very early days and a large amount of the problem will be due to not getting much exercise due to the severity of the anxiety i'm experiencing, but I think the lack of any quality sleep is really stopping me taking the 1st steps to helping myself.

What I would like to ask, is has anyone experienced similar sleep issues with taking the Citalopram at night rather than in the morning? I know in theory, I could make a simple change myself to test this, but I don't want to start messing around without some idea of what could happen and my thinking isn't all that clear due to both the anxiety itself and the lack of sleep - i really don't know whether to try changing anything yet or not at this early stage and / or risk making things any worse - any thoughts / experiences welcome - thanks :unsure:

[Greenman50]

I used to take mine at 12 ish and now take it a 4 ish . 20 mg and it does not make me feel tired at all .

My sleeping pattern has altered though , no matter what time i go to bed , i fall asleep straight away but always wake up in exactly 2 hours and then just keep drifting in and out of sleep every 20-30 minutes for the rest of the night .
Three weeks on it for me .

[trooper]

I used to take mine at 12 ish and now take it a 4 ish . 20 mg and it does not make me feel tired at all .

My sleeping pattern has altered though , no matter what time i go to bed , i fall asleep straight away but always wake up in exactly 2 hours and then just keep drifting in and out of sleep every 20-30 minutes for the rest of the night .
Three weeks on it for me .

That is my experience.

Although for the first six months I used to wake up at 4am EVERYNIGHT without fail, unless I took sleeping pills.

Now I get the waking up every 30m - 1hr.

I take mine around early evening, sometimes later due to coming in late. I may try mid afternoon for a bit.

[trooper]

On the subject of sleeping, not sure if its bause I reduced my does, but I have been sleeping like a bear. Last night I slept (albeit waking up regularly) through to the morning, then I had two 3-4 hour naps in the day. Most unproductive working from home day ever.

And I woke up tired and have been tired all evening, and now about to go to bed at 12am, really tired.

I actually really like sleeping, but I have been more asleep than awake for the past 24hrs, which can't be good.

[maks]

trooper - thanks for your comments - I've been slightly better for the last few nights - I bit the bullet and started taking the Cit in the morning - now getting 3/4 hours good sleep a night - hope yours works out

[Tero]

I think you can take it any time, as long as you take it at that time for a while and do not keep switching.

Good luck.