citralopram side effect worries

[fordbird]

i have been prescribed 10mg of citralopram four wks ago now bcos i cant decide whether i shud take them or not.

everyone professionally says they help they are great but all i read is people feelin awful in the first few wks feelin dizzy spaced out sick and wakin up in the night! i cant afford to feel any more weird or dizzy as i do a driving job so need to be focused. i was told citralopram does not make you drowsy.

my main concern as well as all i have read is that i will be that one in a hundred million that will get this serotonin syndrome!
im petrified of dying and cant find any useful info to help me decide to take them.
i mean ive managed 10yrs without depressents and by the sounds of everything people r saying it just aimt worth it.

sayin that tho since coming off my anxiety pills(which took the edge off my anxiety and depression but cant b on them cos they make me feel weird and drowsy hence cant drive) wel i feel more agigated now and had a bad night with depression cryin all night last night and this morning.

is it really worth taking citralopram if all they do is make you feel worse my boss is losing patience after 5 wks off work cant afford any more time off but like i say serotonin syndrome is my main worry as well as these other worries.

anyone got any good advice or can tell me how they were on the tablets at 10mg please cos after 4wks i really dont c the point in makin myself worse wen i need to be bk to work next week:shrug:

[no_name]

It's worth taking citalopram for sure! As most of the people like to say, some side effects for the first week or two are nothing compared to the benefits of the medicine helping you get back your life. As for the serotonine syndrome- it is veeery rare condition and is almost always a result of using different kinds of antidepressant at the same time (SSRIs and MAOIs for example) so it's almost impossible for you to get it, especially with such low dose of 10mg (i am taking 40!). Don't worry for SS, just take the pills if you need to, wish you quick recovery!

[crumble]

Hi fordbird,
Why don't you try building up the dose to 10mg? Take a quarter of a tablet a day for one week, the next week take half a tablet a day for that week, then take the full tablet the week after. It's up to you how you do it, this is just a suggestion.
If you do a search on the web you'll find other mentions of slowly building up the dose of anti depressants.
Hope this helps

[fordbird]

hard decision cos the anxiety pills mellowed my depression but now ive come off em cos they made me feel weird n drowsy cant take citralopram n feel like wat ive heard dizzy tired etc n cant go bk to work like that as i drive

[Ingenious]

Fordbird you are more likely to spontaneously combust or be abducted by aliens than get serotonin syndrome from 10mg of Citalopram. It is very, very rare and usually only happens due to wrong combinations of medications or other reasons.

You really must disregard the accounts of side effects you read here - not everyone gets them, even if you do they don't last that long and I'm sorry to say but the nature of the medication you need to help you is the possibility of feeling a little rough as your body adjusts to it. Focus not on the short term effects you might not even get but rather on getting better which is why you have been prescribed these.

The longer you wait to start taking medication the longer it will be before you start to get better. And if you do feel a little rough on them we're here to talk to.

Crumble's advice is good about building up, if you're really worried why not take 5mg (ie. half a pill) each day for a week then move up to 10mg. This will ease you in a little more gently.

I've a couple of friends who have taken this and didn't get any side effects. Bear in mind for every person who gets side effects and posts here there may be hundreds of people who didn't get any bad effects and therefore have not been in search of a forum to post in for help :)

[no_name]

I am against building up the dose, especially in steps of 5mg, that's just my opinion. I've always started with full 20mg a day and the side effects i get are not so bad and only last for a week or two- nothing that can't be dealt with. Increasing the dose in small steps just wastes your time, you have to recover fast. 5mg increasing does nothing- you are just extending your suffering