Switching From Citalopram to Sertraline

Hi all. So I was on Citalopram 20mg for 5 years and it worked really well for me. Little more than 2 months ago, my anxiety came back and I went to my doctor. She upped my dose to 30mg and I was really hoping that would ease my anxiety. Unfortunately, I’m almost at 7 weeks since the increase and feel these past 2 weeks I’ve actually gone more downhill than up.

Went in to see her again and she gave me a couple options but we decided on trying a new antidepressant. She put me on Sertraline 50mg and said I did not need to taper my current medication and could straight switch to the Sertraline.

I’m planning on waiting till Friday night to try it, but am a little anxious about how my body will react to it. Anyone try this switch? And if so, any success? Thanks!

I'm currently on 150 mg (was increased about 6 weeks ago.) I maintained 100 mg for about 13 years before it pooped out on that dose. When I first started, I was put on a very low dose, 25 mg, then up to 50 mg, then 75 mg and so on. I'm kind of curious why your psychiatrist is starting you off on 50 mg, but I guess they know better than I do.

I think it works different for different people. The main physical symptoms I got was head fuzziness, dizziness, very sleepy and tired throughout the day, and increased appetite. This all disappeared and eventually once I hit 100 mg the panic attacks and symptoms stopped altogether except for the increased appetite. And it was pretty difficult for me to get out of bed in the morning, kinda just wanted to sleep.

On the 150 mg that I was just switched to, I have no increase in appetite, head fuzziness, tiredness, jitteriness, headache, and extreme negative thinking. I've been making most of the situations I am in worse by worrying. Granted I'm on week 6.. still have a little bit to go to see if this dose is going to work. It did worked on week 4, 5 and 6, then sorta backtracked.

heya.... I went from 40mg of Citalopram to 100mg of Sertraline without any tapering off the Cit.

I was also worried about doing it but to be honest it was the best thing I could have done....The Citalopram takes 2 weeks to leave your symptoms, while the Sertraine takes 2 weeks to get into your system (it takes longer to start to work than the 2 weeks) .... so you don't get the start up side effects of the sertraline, as you are still covered by the citalopram.

My Dr told me that Citalopram and Sertraline are sister drugs, they have the same active ingredients just other ingredients too

good luck :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by venusbluejeans

My Dr told me that Citalopram and Sertraline are sister drugs, they have the same active ingredients just other ingredients too

good luck :)

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They have totally different "active ingredients" but are same family of ADs (SSRIs), so I suppose they could be siblings...

Wonder who the parents are? :wacko:

Hi everyone, I appreciate all your responses :). I actually ended up deciding to give the Citalopram another 1-2 weeks before switching to the Sertraline. A lot of people who have also been on the medication told me that I should give the increase at least 8 weeks and that sometimes it can take up to 12 weeks.

Surprisingly, the past 2 days I actually did notice I had more calm periods throughout the day. So I’m hoping the Citalopram will work out since I’ve had success on it previously.

MadWomanintheAttik - It was actually my doctor who prescribed the switch to the 50mg Sertraline. She said that 50mg was about a middle dose and would be similar enough to the 30mg of Citalopram that I’m on. I asked the pharmacist when I went to go pick the prescription up and she said that dose was fine.
I think my doctor didn’t put me on 25mg because it would almost be too low and that would probably cause side effects?