Citalopram - about to give up

[ames247]

I have restarted Citalopram after 4 months being off them and at 13 days in my anxiety is unbearable😔 I have two DDs and the whole start of he summer holidays has been me rocking back and forward, crying have panic attack after panic attack 😢
I suffer with health anxiety which started two years ago and I managed with meds and CBT to get it under control, but it has came back tearing its ugly head over two weeks ago.
I have been back and forward to the doctors to see if I should lower the does as I am on 20mg but all three gps have told me to stick with it and gave me short term diazepam, which does work but they will not I’ve me anymore (can’t have beta blockers as have asthma)
We are going on holiday on Friday and we have looked forward to it all year as a family and I have said to my husband today I am going to have to stop taking these tablets because I can’t bear to wake up feeling like this while we are there.
Before I do this I just wanted to see if anyone had any sort of positive stories and if anyone would think these would have kicked in by now?
Desperate for a ray of light

---------- Post added at 11:32 ---------- Previous post was at 10:18 ----------

Please anyone?

[wcs2222]

Hello.

I think you already know that the increased anxiety is a common initial side-effect of Citalopram. Although 3 GPs said to stick with 20mg, they are not the people who have to suffer through it. They are just going "by the book" that 20mg is the recommended therapeutic dosage and are not considering how you can titrate up to that level, which is well-documented in literature and done by lots of anxiety sufferers.

I also restarted Cit 3 1/2 months ago, starting with 10mg for 3 weeks, then 15mg for 3 weeks, then 20mg ongoing. The disadvantage is that starting low and ramping up will take longer to achieve recovery, which took ~10 weeks total in my case. On the other hand, if you give up on Cit now, then you will not achieve recovery at all ... if you restart Cit again later, you have to restart again from the very beginning.

Would you prefer to suffer less and take longer, or suffer more and be faster/give up? Do you really have to tell your GP how you are doing it? Good luck!