Advice please swapping meds

[Littleweed]

Hello
Just wanted some advice please

I am a lady in her sixties who has suffered from anxiety for a number of years , well as long as I can remember , having panic attacks randomly
Always worrying about everything,
I have tried CBT and mindfulness, and still do mindfulness but not as regular as I should

A couple of years ago I went through really bad patch bought on by going on a cruise,
I did not want to go was so frightened in case something happened, and I started to lose interest in everything
My husband came with me, to my doctor who i get on with really well , and she said recommended me going on 10 mg Of Citalopram , to help and yes it did lucky, I had no side effects , a few months later it was upped to 20 mg and still no side effects

The thing is I have put on over 2 stone since taking this and although I feel better for taking it I cannot keep increasing

I have raised concerns with her and she has suggested changing to 20g Fluoxetine as this might not affect my weight quite so much

But I have been really stressed about whether to change or not I suppose scared it might make me feel worse, I am still taking the Cit but have the others at home but cannot take the plunge and swap

Has anyone got any experience on swapping

many thanks

[panic_down_under]

The thing is I have put on over 2 stone since taking this and although I feel better for taking it I cannot keep increasing

I have raised concerns with her and she has suggested changing to 20g Fluoxetine as this might not affect my weight quite so much

But I have been really stressed about whether to change or not I suppose scared it might make me feel worse, I am still taking the Cit but have the others at home but cannot take the plunge and swap

Most people have few problems switching from one SSRI to another overnight, however, there can be two issues. The first is that dose equivalence between antidepressants isn't an exact science, so some fine tuning of the dose may be required after a few weeks. The second is fluoxetine has a very long half-life so can take a while to build up in the bloodstream. It might be better to cross-taper from citalopram to fluoxetine by taking only 10mg of each for a couple of weeks. However, you should discuss this with your GP.

[Bike Rider]

Hi, when I swapped from 40mg Cit to 20mg Fluox, my GP, who I rate very highly, told me to stop the Cit for 3 days and then start the Fluox.

This I did and all was ok, I still have put on weight though, have joined a gym now. I think the weight side is more to do with us feeling less enthusiastic to do things, it was in my case.

[Littleweed]

Thanks for your reply

I have finally plucked up the courage and swapped to Fluxutine taking that very first tablet is the worse

Dont feel to bad today bit of a headache but could be due to the last few days of worrying about tablets

Even thought about coming off tablets completely, but not sure if i can manage without them , taking tablets has made such a change on how i feel , i wish i had gone on them years ago, but i was always to scarred to try them.