yoshi4844

[yoshi4844]

Hey, I am almost 20 years old and super new to the world of AD's. I know how complex they are and how unknown they are but also I am no doctor, just a student interested in the medical field and psychology. I have been reading these forms for only a few sleepless nights. Sorry for any grammar mistakes in advance.

 

I am currently taking AD's for my anxiety, which I assume has built over the past couple of years since COVID-19. Had my first panic attack this Jan 15 of 2023 (no great changes in my life which happened around this time) which impacted my sleep. Went to the ER where they said it was a panic attack (blood work, blood pressure, etc only abnormality was slightly high WBC). The next days, I only have symptoms when I am laying down (sudden spike in increased heart rate and lightheadedness). It is very bothersome when I trying to sleep. Always happens when I am about to doze off, I begin to feel dizzy (even though my eyes are closed) and lightheaded) which immediately deletes my drowsiness from existence. Go to doctors which want to give me AD's immediately and therapy but I get suspicious about the AD's and deny them until the next day after I got another sleepless night and took them. I am prescribed 10 mg generic citalopram pill and hydroxyzine 25 mg tablet.

 

Only took the hydroxyzine a couple times before it stopped making me drowsy. I then switched to melatonin for a few times before it made me only drowsy but couldn't sleep. Tried my best to willpower through it for about a week and a half. I was already 1 week late to school and also my job. Feel new symptoms in the day like elevated heart rate (baseline levels slowly increase as the day goes on, reset once I go to bed and rest usually around 80's to 100's RHR), chest pressure and my body reacting to anxiety more than it should (i.e im a little anxious in my head but my body is reacting as if I was super anxious like can't speak or get really sweaty lol) Average sleep was about 0-4 everyday with a couple of 6 hour sleep gaps (used to sleep 8-9 all the time I love sleep). Never had real dreams just half awake fever dreams that were stressful and thoughts but I was mostly conscious the whole time. Went to the ER a couple more times in this week and a half. On my 3rd visit, I had an xray, ultrasound, blood work, and monitored while I had a 1 hour nap. They found nothing noteworthy and my shakiness disappeared after they took blood from me. (normal WBC this time)

 

Seeing the impact my anxiety had on my school and social life, I finally give in and take my first citalopram dose on Jan 29 @9pm (prescribed at bedtime). Jan 30th I get scared and decide to not take them. On Jan 31th I take them and decide to continue taking them to give them a chance. With every pill I feel something in my brain but it isn't a bad feeling. Feb 3rd while having covid fever, I felt my whole body change after taking my dose. I check my heart rate and it finally lowered to normal levels. I was able to sleep this night semi normally. Feel like myself again 100% until feb 6th. I continue taking my dose regularly and monitor myself. I had a MCOT monitor on during this due to my repeated ER visits. Slowly realize that even though I go to bed from 10:30 or 12, I am now semi napping until 3am where (like clockwork) I go to take a piss and then sleep like a baby (and dream) until noon in which I wake up feeling good. This is great except I have classes and meetings before noon all the time. Also I got normal side effects like gassy stomach and brain zaps but I didn't care as long as I slept. Also slight increase in laziness but I was already lazy before so it didn't change much. 

 

If I tried to wake up before noon, my body would punish me. One time I woke up at 11am and felt drowsy until 6pm. The next day I went to my psychiatrist for the first time @9am and felt like a zombie for that whole day and the next. During my visit, she said she didn't like how I was prescribed Citalopram as a starter medication because of risk of QT prolongation and at night (said no drowsiness is associated with the drug) and tells me to switch to zoloft (generic) and trazadone for sleep. Originally she thought I didn't need AD's and just needed to sleep but I said that the citalopram was working well but if I had to switch I would like to have both on hand so I don't go back to hell longer than I need to. I am prescribed sertraline generic 25 mg (1/2 pill 50 mg) @morning and trazadone 25 mg (1/2 pill 50 mg) before sleeping. I ask her if its ok to stop my citalopram without slowly tapering and she said it was fine since I was only a few weeks deep.

 

Since I am in zombie mode, I stop citalopram cold turkey but also refrain from taking my new meds since I can sleep and am drowsy all day anyways. (technically for 3 days no meds). On feb 20 in the am morning, I am back to old habits of same old symptoms that didn't go away and came back a little bit worse. I take my trazadone and go to sleep. Wake up at noon and take my sertraline at that time consistently. Felt light headaches for the first couple of days on it. After 5 nights of trazodone, (3 great ones and 2 where I woke up at 3 am) I stop the medication because it made me super constipated and I also had diarrhea (???).

On the fourth day of sertraline I notice I have anxiety trembling (which previously I only had while laying down) during the day. I try to calm myself down to no avail and choose to ignore it. My heart rate is slightly lower than normal but I think its just the zoloft doing its thing. This night I slept a beautiful 10 hours. On the fifth day the shaking is worse but now I feel my old anxiety of having to keep myself busy and productive, heart rate still slightly lower though. I try to calm down again and it doesn't work but I am not concerned since my sleep was great the other day. This night I was not so lucky.

 

On the night of February 26th I only get 2 hours of sleep.  Before I went to sleep I ate until I realized that I ate so much without feeling hungry or full. I wake up at 2 am feeling really hot and sweaty (room is like 55F tops) then I stay up until 4am tired wanting to sleep. At one point I feel like I blinked really hard and then woke up from feeling like I fell. Can't sleep so I get on my phone and do my research including finding this website. Around 8 am my mom wakes up and I go to talk to her. While she's talking to me, I begin to break down into tears and freeze up and can't talk. After a while of crying, she ends up having to feed me a banana and milk. It works and I calm down feeling like that wasn't me (I was frustrated but not to that point). I begin to wonder if it was my body reacting bad to the zoloft and so I call my psychiatrist and leave her a voicemail. I head to the ER and my psychiatrist responds to me while in the waiting room and everyone basically tells me to drop the zoloft (sertraline) and go back to the celexa(citalopram). I decide to stop cold turkey my sertraline and take my old dose of 10mg of citalopram at 3pm this time. Everyone goes to work and I am home alone. I begin to have waves of fear while reading this site and I get another panic attack. The fear was just as great as before and just as before I just wanted to die so it would end. I called a hotline they gave me which did not help at all and then called my brother which he helped me calm down. I was still shaking and my heart rate was up but I felt ok in my head. I felt like I wasn't in control of my emotions so I went to the psychiatric ER this time. I am told that the sertraline was too low to even have an effect on me and that it was probably caused by dropping the celexa without tapering. There I am given a benzo, trazadone (i think 50 mg), and a place to sleep. I think I slept around 8pm and woke up around 7am felt pretty good. However they gave me a 20mg citalopram to take at 10am even though it wasn't my right dose or time to take it. 

 

Anyways that was like today so I am pretty up to date. I still am shaking only in the left half of my body a little bit but I don't feel anxious. If I don't get a response soon I am planning to continue my citalopram 10 mg @3pm like normal. However, I do have many concerns and am hoping I still have hope for my nervous system. If it is appropriate to get these questions answered here, here they are:

*what is the predicted state of my nervous system due to my mistakes?

*Did I just mess up really bad and like am in the perfect situation for kindling? (reinstated to same full dose a week after dropping and then double dose the next day at different????)

*Many of the supposed citalopram withdrawal symptoms happened to line up with sertraline side effects, was it a case of both occurring?

*Did I mess up my nervous system by dropping all my meds cold turkey?

*If the zoloft wasn't what made my anxiety worse, would it be a good idea to keep citalopram until stable and then slowly taper into sertraline to see if it doesn't force me to sleep and is better?

 

Thank you for your time and support

[yoshi4844]

Edit: March 2 2023, I decided to take the citalopram 10 mg @10am in order to keep dosage consistent but I am still feeling some withdrawal symptoms still. On the night of feb28 I was able to sleep decently but the night of march 1st I have not slept at all. My body shakes itself awake.

[Altostrata]

Welcome, @yoshi4844

 

I'm not clear about what you're asking here. It seem you like citalopram.

 

We offer peer support for going off psychiatric drugs. What is your question connected to going off psychiatric drugs?

[yoshi4844]

I am sorry for misunderstanding the purpose of this page. I was just wondering if I could get advice on staying on medication/using it safely (even though I really don't want to be on it longer than a few months) and tips on eventually tapering off and dealing with the withdrawal that I got from cold turkeying it. I feel like my psychiatrists don't explain as much as they could and I don't want to be left in the dark. 

Thank you for your time.

 

[Faure]

15 hours ago, yoshi4844 said:

I was just wondering if I could get advice on staying on medication/using it safely

Hello, I’m afraid this is a website to help people safely taper off these drugs which have been proven to give worse outcomes for people who take them than if they had not taken them in the first place. The drugs create a dependency and often very nasty, prolonged withdrawal effects if not withdrawn slowly and carefully. We do not consider the drugs are safe to use at all and so cannot give you any advice about staying on the meds. 
 

I have had a quick read of your thread and wonder whether you have tried meditation as a way to help with your anxiety? I started meditating in March 2020 while recovering from a very nasty time of withdrawal following a failed taper. This happened to be at the start of the pandemic which was naturally overwhelming for many of us. I discovered meditation kept me just the right side of calm while I was able to adapt to new ways of working online. The benefits were so huge I have kept it up ever since, doing this meditation at least 5 days a week. I really do recommend you try this instead of medication. Medication messes with our brains and often makes our lives worse in the medium to long term. Since building such a strong meditation habit I rarely experience anxiety now (it used to be a big problem) and if I do become anxious I am able to breathe deeply, notice the thoughts and feelings and calm myself down. I didn’t use to be able to do that. The benefits of meditation build over time so you will need to do it regularly to start seeing them and using it to manage your anxiety.

 

There are several useful books about anti depressants, as you say you want to be educated about them I suggest this one by Joanna Moncrieff.

 

If you want to stop the drugs I’m sure Alto can give you some advice on how to best do that, unfortunately as I say we can’t offer any advice about continuing with them. Let us know how you are and what you decide ☺️

[Altostrata]

@yoshi4844 you might look around in the Introductions forum and see what people have said about their own citalopram experience, and read up on adverse effects on drugs.com. Common adverse effects from long-term citalopram (more than a month) are sexual dysfunction, emotional blunting, and apathy and fatigue. Others are activation -- nervousness and sleep disruption.

 

Before continuing with citalopram, if withdrawal is a concern for you, you need to discuss how to go off with your doctor. If your doctor does not know, you cannot rely on this prescriber for your drug journey, and you should be realistic about that. The drug switching over the last 2 months is not a good sign.

 

FYI Tips for tapering off citalopram (Celexa)

 

[yoshi4844]

Thank you guys for the advice, it helps a lot. I will check out everything you guys mentioned and update you all once something of note happens. I am planning to eventually drop the medication as soon as I can (safely though). My experience with SSRI withdrawal is very short but I do not wish to go through it again.

[yoshi4844]

@Altostrata Due to my inexperience I think I messed up. I began to take Trazodone in order to sleep but then I realized that I would be becoming dependent on it as well. I am writing this after a dose but I cut of a part of the half pill because I don't think I should cold turkey drop it. How can I safely get off all of the medications I am on. I would like to drop the Trazodone first as soon as I can because I am worried now. 

[yoshi4844]

Update March, 9 2023:

 

After my panicking of last night when I realized that I couldn't sleep w/o the trazodone, I got a few hours of sleep.

 

I'd just like to say my life has really turned to poop since the beginning of January and my family has taken the brunt of the burden. I've gone to therapy about 3 times now and have realized I had anxiety for so long that I put off until it started to physically affect me to the point of sleeplessness. I used to go to school and work and live my life but now almost everything has been taken from me. It seems like every choice I make is just digging me deeper into this pit of hell. I knew the medications were dangerous but I took them bc I was desperate, therapy took a few weeks to get. Once I was on the 10mg of celexa generic it seemed so easy to manage but I wasn't at 100% yet.

 

Visiting my psychiatrist was the worst mistake of my life. At the time waking up before noon would cause me to be a zombie and I met with her at 10:30 am. She caused me to have withdrawal but making me cold turkey my citalopram even though I was on it for a few weeks, put me on zoloft 25 mg and trazodone 25mg. Went to ER for withdrawal and reinstated citalopram again 10mg after 10 days of being off of it. I have requested a switch in psychiatrist and I will no longer see the person who ruined my life.

 

so far after being on citalopram again, my heart rate is regulated but I still cry everyday and last night I panicked really badly after realizing that I would take the trazodone to sleep which is just more poison in my system.

 

I trust my therapist but she is a supporter of medication although she definitely denounced my psychiatrist for her actions. wants me to maintain celexa for at least 6 months.

 

I do not know who to trust anymore and I am tired of making mistakes. I am tired of this system which has definitely hurt others worse than I. I am tired of not having anywhere else to go. I can't go to the system because they will just ruin me.

 

Anyways, I still have the same questions as before:

When I was on celexa pre withdrawal. 9pm dose and I truly slept at 4am to noon although I'd be in bed by 11. so my plan is to change my dose to 5pm to hopefully sleep at a semi appropriate time until I could drop these poisons out of my system. However trazodone makes me sleep and probably messes with this plan. My goal is to sleep.

 

*Should I drop the trazodone CT or taper (I have taken 12 doses but not consecutively which is probably bad)

 

*I want to drop the celexa asap but these things are slow, I feel like I am racing against time (less doses mean less withdrawl? but slower doses safer <10% taper)

 

*My withdrawal symptoms lessened so I am assuming I have not kindled but I have learned to not get my hopes up. What should I expect from kindling? am I already at risk and could I taper celexa down to reduce potential kindling?

 

*My 11 days of 25mg of zoloft wouldn't cause withdrawal right since I'm on a different SSRI celexa right??

 

*I forgot to mention I take men's one a day vitamins, I have taken it all my life so I expect my body to accept it right? Should I drop it so that my Nervous system doesn't cry?

 

 

 

Thank you for your time and support  Without your website I think I would be dead by now. When I improve I want to give back in whatever way I can. Would being an educated psychiatrist be a good idea as well? Or maybe something else idk I am at a cool university so I think I could do something with my life. I want to combat this stuff once I am good because I had no direction in life and now I have spite >:)

 

P.S: This website is very tiring to read but I am doing my best by searching and educating myself. I have also started yoga which helped me before I took medications. I want to slowly incorporate my self care stuff in order to not die like the meditation previously mentioned.

[yoshi4844]

Oh yea and since my withdrawal I am also trembling plus when I got anxious I stared shivering a lot. Specifically my heart shivers and shakes, hopefully it doesn't kill me but at this point I don't know what to do but take it and wait.

[Altostrata]

Hello, @yoshi4844 If you've been taking trazodone only since March 6, you can simply stop taking it.

 

7 hours ago, yoshi4844 said:

Oh yea and since my withdrawal I am also trembling plus when I got anxious I stared shivering a lot. Specifically my heart shivers and shakes, hopefully it doesn't kill me but at this point I don't know what to do but take it and wait.

 

Do these shivers and shakes occur at any particular times of day?

 

Quote

 

feb 27--citalopram generic 10 mg pill @3pm

feb 28--citalopram generic 20 mg pill @10am

mar 1/2--citalopram generic 10 mg pill @10 am

moved to citalopram generic 10mg pill @12 noon

 

 

Between Feb 27 and March 2 (?), you made 3 dramatic changes in your citalopram dosing. Making big changes in your drug schedule can cause odd symptoms.

 

Now you're going to drop trazodone. If I were you, I'd settle on taking 10mg citalopram at the same time each day and let your nervous system settle down for a while, maybe a few months, from the changes. Please let us know how you're doing.

[yoshi4844]

Hi, @Altostrata,

Thank you so much for the quick response.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

If you've been taking trazodone only since March 6, you can simply stop taking it.

I first took 5 doses of 25mg trazodone feb21-25 consecutively, then took a 3 day break, then again on march 1,2,3 followed by another 2 day break then 3 doses on march 6,7,8. It is less doses then 2 weeks but I have started since 2 weeks ago. I was reading on this website and it seems to me that I wasn't the only victim of being told to take "as needed" because taking gap days is dangerous and highly against tapering rules.

 

6 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

Do these shivers and shakes occur at any particular times of day?

They happen around the time I am trying to sleep from around 11pm to 10am, they slow down during my active hours. Also have constant trembling like if I has anxious which I think is from the nasty part of the Trazodone.

 

My current theory as of now is that the anxiety (I previously never had during the day) is caused by the Trazodone and it is being reduced by my citalopram, since when I took my citalopram originally, I became very drowsy and not anxious.

[Altostrata]

13 minutes ago, yoshi4844 said:

They happen around the time I am trying to sleep from around 11pm to 10am,

 

This is after you take trazodone, correct?

 

Yes, you can simply stop taking trazodone.

[yoshi4844]

@Altostrata Thank you so much for the help. 

 

My first 2 days no trazadone I have less anxiety, hopefully continue being well next week. 

However, I come with another question. 

On 3/9/2023 at 11:01 AM, yoshi4844 said:

When I was on celexa pre withdrawal. 9pm dose and I truly slept at 4am to noon although I'd be in bed by 11. so my plan is to change my dose to 5pm to hopefully sleep at a semi appropriate time until I could drop these poisons out of my system. However trazodone makes me sleep and probably messes with this plan. My goal is to sleep.

 

I still want to continue with this plan as today is the first day that the citalopram 7 hour gap has claimed me since I've stopped taking Trazadone. Today, march 10th my arm's and back are kinda asleep since 7:30 pm, it isn't bad once I got used to it but it freaked me out. 

 

On 3/9/2023 at 6:45 PM, Altostrata said:

Now you're going to drop trazodone. If I were you, I'd settle on taking 10mg citalopram at the same time each day and let your nervous system settle down for a while, maybe a few months, from the changes. Please let us know how you're doing.

Here you said to take it easy for the same time everyday to let my nervous system settle down. However, this situation makes me very uncomfortable since I am used to sleeping around 11 and not 7:30 PM.

 

My questions:

 

Will I have to suck it up and get my body used to sleeping very early?

Or can I slowly continue to move up my dose by idk 20-30 minutes a day so that I can maybe sleep at 9 or 10 instead?

I would also like to keep in mind tapering as an option since I wish to be off the medications as well (being on them for more than 6 months makes me sad)?

 

Thank you for all your help so far, what you do here is amazing

[yoshi4844]

My loss of coordination in just my arms went away, I just woke up sweating like my earlier side effects. I began to have my shivers again. Maybe my anxiety about the loss of coordination? I've been having shoulder pains as well.

 

My hope is that this isn't some form of serotonin syndrome?

[yoshi4844]

Haven't slept since 4:30 AM, seems consistent with how I was before, I guess my sleep is dependent on the time of my dose. 

 

Either my body sleeps 7 hours after my dose and wakes up 8 hours before my dose. Either way it is dose dependent.

 

My fear of serotonin syndrome I think is unfounded since I was sweating due to having a lot of blankets and my shivers get bad when I am anxious.

[yoshi4844]

Explanation of how I think citalopram is affecting me:

 

Before celexa: anxiety when laying down, got in the way of sleep so little to no sleep

During celexa round 1: when taken @9pm,  wouldn't sleep until 4 am even if I went to bed @10:30pm. 4am-12noon sleep.

During celexa round 2: when taken at 12:30 noon, body sleeps at 7:30pm, I go to bed 10:30pm, wake up at 4:30 am

 

Anytime I wake up during the sleepy time to go use the bathroom, I go back to sleep relatively quickly once I return to bed (I am just groggy)

I haven't had any other side effects that were permanent besides the dose time affected when I sleep. 

 

Last night I was awake until 10:30pm and around 7:45 pm my arms fell asleep and I could only do one movement at a time for a couple hours it scared me. It felt similar to trying to move your body when you are half asleep. Therefore, if I am not asleep before drug induced sleepy time I get semi body sleep paralysis.

 

If I wake up before the drug induced normal wake up time (due to an alarm or phone call) and I do not go back to sleep, I will feel groggy for several hours (or couple days) as I mentioned in my first post.

[Altostrata]

4 hours ago, yoshi4844 said:

Before celexa: anxiety when laying down, got in the way of sleep so little to no sleep

During celexa round 1: when taken @9pm,  wouldn't sleep until 4 am even if I went to bed @10:30pm. 4am-12noon sleep.

During celexa round 2: when taken at 12:30 noon, body sleeps at 7:30pm, I go to bed 10:30pm, wake up at 4:30 am

 

If it makes you sleepy 6 hours after you take it and you want to go to bed at 11:30 p.m., why don't you take it at about 5 p.m.?

 

You would not get serotonin syndrome from dropping trazodone. However, if you get sweaty after taking citalopram this indicates 10mg citalopram is too much for you. 

[yoshi4844]

@AltostrataGood afternoon

I would like to take it at 5 pm but as you said, I shouldn't mess with the time of the dosages a lot right?

 

2 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

You would not get serotonin syndrome from dropping trazodone. However, if you get sweaty after taking citalopram this indicates 10mg citalopram is too much for you. 

This makes sense, I only got sweaty at night for a couple days but then it stopped. This eases my mind thank you

[Altostrata]

@yoshi4844, if taking it at noon hasn't improved your situation, you might move 10mg citalopram later by a hour each day until you're taking it at 5 p.m. This may at least resolve your complaint about poor sleep.

 

Then stop changing your drugs to let your system settle down.

[yoshi4844]

Ok perfect, thank you so much. I'll update if anything bad happens. I appreciate the help so much

[yoshi4844]

Today I woke up around 5 (actually still 4am cuz daylight savings time lol), stayed up for a bit and took a nap from 8-10 am.

 

Yesterday, when I took the nap, I woke up more anxious by a little bit but it went away with yoga and light exercise.

 

Today, similar results happened. I woke up way less anxious that last time but now the skin in both my wrists and ankles feels like it is burning and pins and needles. Just a little bit tho

 

I fear that the symptoms I had with the trazadone earlier in the week were just withdrawal and they happened to go away after I stopped my third dose (and now are coming back).

 

I don't want to reinstate but if I must what should I do? How long should I wait before I must bite the bullet?

 

Thank you:)

[Altostrata]

What was the last drug change that you made?

 

You may experience bumps while making drug changes. Passing mild symptoms are not significant. They need to recur daily to be important.

[yoshi4844]

22 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

What was the last drug change that you made?

Last drug change was changing my dose from 12:30 noon to 12:40 noon,

 

However, When I woke up at 5am I was feeling good. It wasn't until I took a two hour nap from 8am-10am then felt the slight burning. It has mostly subsided after I took a shower, it is only on my right hand now.

 

Yesterday I also took a nap which raised gave me slight waves of anxiety after I woke up but they subsided as the day progressed. Maybe my body doesn't like naps?

[Altostrata]

On 3/12/2023 at 1:07 PM, yoshi4844 said:

Last drug change was changing my dose from 12:30 noon to 12:40 noon,

 

You changed your dosing by 10 minutes? This has no bearing on anything.

 

It sounds like you have very slight effects from quitting trazodone. These should go away in a week or two.

 

Please let us know when you want to taper a psychiatric drug.

[yoshi4844]

I changed the dosing by 10 minutes on the day of the reply, I have now slowly built my way into taking my dose at 3pm. I have been getting better sleep and the effects have gone away, I will take the month to stabilize. 

 

I would love to start tapering citalopram today but I know I must have to stabilize first right? A month should be enough. Please let me know otherwise. I have been thinking about it for a bit, to do the 10% taper every month. I'll do my own research again before then and I'll come back in a month with an update.

 

Thank you for your help during this time, this website is a blessing

[yoshi4844]

I just hope I wasn't misunderstood, I do not like being on AD's or the idea of them. I would like to not be on them. Only reason why I was so desperate to get back on citalopram was to get out of the withdrawal my old psychiatrist put me on. 

 

Therapy and self-care has helped me so much with my anxiety in the past few months. Also taking a break from school helped a lot. Sorry to be a bother.

[Altostrata]

To decide if it's time to taper, you will need to see how you're doing after you've been on your new drug schedule for a month.

[yoshi4844]

Something to add to my symptoms since withdrawal, if I haven't mentioned are random shoulder/lower neck pain and my body vibrating. (something would always shake inside me since anxiety started but withdrawal made it move my whole body)

 

They aren't too bad and so far I have been feeling a lot better overall since the end of last week >:)

[yoshi4844]

Update: Will hold medication time at 3pm since yesterday (3:30 dose) I had a panic attack at night, couldn't pee before 2am, woke up with slight diarrhea and constipation. Plus the whole day today I felt off and struggled to pee even though I drank lots of water.

[Altostrata]

@yoshi4844 It was your decision to stay on citalopram. While you are doing this, please talk to your doctor about any adverse effects you might feel from it. It's your doctor's job, not ours, to monitor your drug treatment. It's your doctor's job, not ours, to address adverse effects of your drug treatment.

 

Please let us know when you want to taper.

[yoshi4844]

19 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

It was your decision to stay on citalopram

Kinda unfair to say that, yeah sure it was my decision to stay on it as opposed to going through withdrawal again. Also you were the one to tell me to wait a month before thinking about tapering. (I appreciate the advice.)

 

21 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

While you are doing this, please talk to your doctor about any adverse effects you might feel from it. It's your doctor's job, not ours, to monitor your drug treatment. It's your doctor's job, not ours, to address adverse effects of your drug treatment.

You are very much correct, I only updated my post with my effects to write about my process in which others who may be going through similar things may read now or in the future. If it is annoying I can make one huge update post when I return in a month after "thinking" about tapering. I apologize for the inconvenience. 

 

Also, if doctors aren't knowledgeable about this stuff, is there any point in communicating? I already got rid of the psychiatrist who screwed me over by cold turkeying me and giving me the trazodone. I only wanted to talk to real professionals who have experience with this type of stuff (you guys ). It is THEIR job which THEY should be doing. Obviously I trusted them and can no longer.

 

I am not here to be a problem, I am open to learning since I am new to this and I again apologize for putting this on you. I understand you have many people to communicate to and assist (for free) who definitely are going through much worse than I am currently. I have been doing my best to research on this website. I appreciate all of the time you have given me as my family and I were very scared and worried throughout this entire process. Your time has helped immensely compared to the doctors and psychiatrist I have communicated with in these couple of months.

 

Thank you

[Altostrata]

You could not have had withdrawal from citalopram because January through March 1, you had never been on citalopram long enough to adapt to it. You might have had a series of adverse drug reactions.

 

Nobody told you that you needed to stay on citalopram to recover from withdrawal. You intended to stay on it for your own reasons.

 

On 3/3/2023 at 9:01 PM, yoshi4844 said:

I was just wondering if I could get advice on staying on medication/using it safely (even though I really don't want to be on it longer than a few months)

 

 

Since you intended to stay on it, after a series of bad drug reactions, I advised you:

 

On 3/9/2023 at 6:45 PM, Altostrata said:

If I were you, I'd settle on taking 10mg citalopram at the same time each day and let your nervous system settle down for a while, maybe a few months, from the changes.

 

It's now pretty clear that you had no real intention of tapering citalopram. 

 

Please let us know when you're serious about going off citalopram. Until then, please take complaints about unpleasant drug effects to your doctor.

[yoshi4844]

@AltostrataI apologize, I should have been more clear in how I have changed my mind since then. 

 

10 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

 

You could not have had withdrawal from citalopram because January through March 1, you had never been on citalopram long enough to adapt to it. You might have had a series of adverse drug reactions.

 

This is news to me!
Could I still get off citalopram or is it too late?

This whole time I was under the impression it was withdrawal as the reinstatement of citalopram happened to reduce the majority of my symptoms that appeared since cold turkeying. When I went to the psych ER I was also told that it was “discontinuation syndrome”. The adverse reaction from trazodone probably didn’t assist either.

12 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

 

It's now pretty clear that you had no real intention of tapering citalopram. 

 

Please let us know when you're serious about going off citalopram. Until then, please take complaints about unpleasant drug effects to your doctor

It is true, as everyday I am learning my opinions are changing.

At the time I truly believed that citalopram was my only solution and I had not known of other alternatives nor the huge impact this drug would have had on my life (lost school,social life, job). Communication with my health team has been slim to none but I am trying my hardest. 

 

I am currently serious about getting off of this drug. If it is appropriate I will communicate this to my doctors the next time I can get into contact with them. Ill return once i get an answer from them satisfactory or not.

 

Sorry for my ignorance, I am trying my best to keep up with all of this new information and shock with how much my life has changed in the past couple of months.

[Altostrata]

If you want to go off citalopram, stop your drug experiments, take the same dose of citalopram at the same dose each day, and after a month of stable symptom pattern, consider Tips for tapering off citalopram (Celexa)

 

Have the effects from your last drug experiment on March 8 gone away completely? How long have you been taking 10mg citalopram at the same time each day? What time o'clock is that?

 

[yoshi4844]

To be honest, I can’t tell what effects are from what. As of right now I am stable and having nothing that gets too in the way of my life right now. Yesterday and today are the only days I have taken it @3pm and will continue to do so for the next month.

 

 

Altostrata, thank you for your help, this has been such a frustrating journey and I feel like a blind dog being led left and right. What is your personal advice on what I can do? I hate having to bother everyone and ask for help, everything I do seems like a mistake…