Some advice pls??

[cozmic]

Hi everybody my names Dan I'm a first time poster but have been reading the forums for quite a while.

I suffer from severe depression and anxiety which I believe is connected to some form of body dysmorphic disorder, but anyway I could go on all day about my problems and bore everyone but im not going to :) I have a question regarding my medication I hope somebody can give me some advice.

I have recently started a course of citalopram which I have now been taking for 2 weeks. I switched from mirtazapine, this was very effective at making me sleep but not much else and actually turned into a side effect as i was sleeping for over 13 hours a day.

When I was prescribed the citalopram the physciatrist also gave me a prescription of zopiclone to help me sleep the only problem is I've now run out of them as I was taking 2 a night (3.75MG), and they were helping me sleep however now they have run out I cant sleep maybe getting around 1-3 hours a night.

My question is would it be a bad idea to try and get another prescription of zopiclone or should I try and ride things out and hope my sleeping pattern returns to normal. I was also thinking of asking if I could go back on a small dose of mirtazapine in combination with the citalopram just so I can sleep as its driving me crazy not being able to, I feel so drained and its really bringing me down.


Any help would be greatly appreciated :smile:

Kind regards

Dan

[deepreason]

I've no experience with Zopiclone directly but I do take Zolpidem which is a very similar drug from the same class: z-drugs. I remember reading the leaflet in my box of Zolpidem the first time and reading "should not be taken for more than 2-4 weeks at a time" and thinking "oh fudge" I've already been on this 3 months! Having said that, I've now been on Zolpidem for 2 years and have never had the urge to increase the dose and never had any side effects so don't worry too much.

One useful bit of info that might help is that Mirtazapine is known for giving a stronger hypnotic (sleeping pill) effect at lower doses than at high ones! Seems odd I know but it could turn out to be useful for you if you only wanted a small dose to help you sleep.

[cozmic]

Thanks for the reply I decided to ditch the zopiclone and go on a small dose of Mirtazapine at night for sleeping, felt pretty awful the first few days but seem to be gradually getting better does anybody have any experience of combining citalopram and mirtazapine?


Dan