JayC85: Celexa and Ativan Help

[JayC85]

Admin note: link to benzo forum thread - JayC85: Celexa and Ativan

 

Last October I was put on 20mg of Celexa because of anxiety. I was unemployed at the time and trying to find a job and was suffering from anxiety because of it. I was told I could take it for about 6 months, it was not addictive and I’d be able to get off no problem once things in my life got stable. I never liked how I felt on it, I still had very bad anxiety and just felt completely detached from myself, I hated it. 6 months later I was working and decided to wean off. My gp gave me a schedule to get off in 2 months which I think was too fast in hindsight. I suffered a lot with each reduction of dose but thought it was still the side effects of the Celexa or my old symptoms returning that I was feeling with each drop in dose, but it turns out it was wd and I kept dropping. After a couple weeks off of Celexa I got hit with very bad wd symptoms that kept getting worse and worse. I was put back on 10mg of Celexa by my gp and had a horrible reaction to it. It made my anxiety shoot through the roof and made me extremely suicidal. After a week I got off and found myself with even more symptoms than before. Symptoms included anxiety, panic attacks, what I believe to be akathisia where I cannot stop moving my body in very odd ways, fear of leaving the house, insomnia, burning sensations throughout my body, headaches and what I think to be depersonalization where I just did not feel like myself at all like I was living in someone else’s body. I was very sensitive to everything and anything and lost much weight.

 

I then made an appointment with a psychiatrist who prescribed me .5mg of Ativan daily at night time to help with insomnia and anxiety since I told him I did not want to try another AD. I feel like I was making baby steps to getting better but decided to start taking the Ativan my psychiatrist prescribed to me as it really helped calm me down when I tried it.  Well after almost 2 months on the Ativan I did start feeling a bit better and felt I was on the road to recovery. But then out of the blue I got hit with very strong panic attacks that could last for hours, extreme aggressiveness (I’ve never been aggressive in my life), constant suicidal thoughts coupled with very bad dizziness where I couldn’t walk and very bad stomach pains. I started doing some research and spoke to my psych and I started spacing out my dose to 3 times a day. .15mg at noon, .15mg at 6pm and .2mg at midnight. This helped some, but not much. My psychiatrist wanted to up my dose to see if it helped but I decided to start reducing my dose instead as I felt I was getting bad side effects from the drug and that increasing the dose didn’t make sense. I dropped to .13mg at noon .16mg at 6pm and .16mg at midnight. I did this over the course of 2-3 weeks (a 10% drop in total).

 

This helped reduce the hour long panic attacks a lot, the dizziness and some of the aggressiveness. Since the drops I’m still suffering from the very intense burning stomachaches that can come and go,  bad headaches, high anxiety, burning throughout my body, back aches, constant heat flashes, suicidal thoughts, some breathing problems, new strong depersonalization at times and akathisia is back. Sometimes I’ll take my noon dose of .13mg and feel completely high and just in a dream state when this never used to happen. My stomachaches usually get worse after I take a dose. Again everything was looking up and I was doing better and then I was hit with this out of the blue and it flipped my world completely upside down. Hoping someone might know what’s going on and can give me some advice as I’m completely lost.

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by Shep
added link to benzo forum thread

[JayC85]

Hi guys. I woke up today and my body, head and face are completely numb. I am struggling to realize who I am and where I am at the moment. It feels like a I have a horrible flu and I have very bad anxiety. Can anyone help?

[Altostrata]

Welcome, Jay.

 

As you've realized, you had acute withdrawal from tapering Celexa too fast. You then had a kindling reaction when you took 10mg Celexa again.

 

It looks like you're having an adverse reaction to Ativan now, probably with underlying withdrawal syndrome from Celexa. @Shep will help you with the Ativan dosing; please start a topic for yourself here.

 

For the Celexa withdrawal syndrome, a lot of people find fish oil and magnesium supplements helpful, see
https://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/36-king-of-supplements-omega-3-fatty-acids-fish-oil/
https://survivingantidepressants.org/topic/15483-magnesium-natures-calcium-channel-blocker/

 

Try a little bit of one at a time to see how it affects you.

 

To help us out, follow these instructions Please put your drug and withdrawal history in your signature You may need to use a computer to do this.

[JayC85]

Altostrata,

 

Thank you for your reply! I think this is what exactly is going on. Let me post a topic there and I’ll work on the signature when I’m feeling a bit better.

[Shep]

Jay has started a benzo forum thread here:

 

JayC85: Celexa and Ativan