(I believe both may have different names in the US)
Hi guys.
I just wanted to get some opinions other than my Doctor's and thought here would be a good place to start. I'll try and keep it short!
A couple of years ago I began taking Fluoxetine to treat anxiety and depression. At the time I had become depressed and anxious as a result of a panic attack I had at work one day. I'd never had one before and I never really recovered from it and spent a huge part of 2006/2007 worrying about having another one. Anxiety became a viscous circle in my head. This constant battle with myself made me depressed, before this I had spent 22 years with very little to worry about in my life. I had a privilged upbringing, lots of friends and family that I love and my career is good. So it's not deep routed and generally speaking, I'm sure there are a lot of people here with issues a million times more painful than mine. But anyway, anxiety had become a habit and that made me depressed.
So I took Fluoxetine for 9 months and came off it last May. I didn't feel 100% fixed when I came off it but it had certainly made a massive difference to my life and with exercise had dragged me out of the very dark hole I was in when I began taking it. A couple of weeks after I finished taking it I started to feel really good and had 6 great months.
But in December "that" anxious feeling started coming back into my life and it's got to the point now where it's affecting my life on a daily basis. I don't feel depressed yet and am still functioning at work but I am getting really anxious. It happens on a fairly random basis and but can be really bad in social situations and really haunts me at night.
So I've decided to go back on meds.
The question is this...
Do I take Fluoxetine as I'm used to it and it helped me in the first place but never really cured me?
Or do I try this new drug - Escitalopram/Cipralex? My Doctor said it was more geared towards anxiety than it is depression and that kind of makes sense, I'm only really suffering from anxiety at the moment. What are the side effects?
So if you have experiences to share on either drug please let me know, it's a big decision for me. Any advice would be great.
Having briefly looked through some existing posts I've noticed a few people saying they found it difficult getting off Escitalopram/Cipralex.. can anybody add to this or find it easy to get off it?
Thanks a million.
Much love x x x
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