[InfiniteSadness]

Been on it for years- helps very slightly with anx and depression/ocd but the effect is so subtle. i dont understand. i need to switch soon. When i first went on it, it worked much better 3 years ago. Now i feel it just dumbs me up a little.

Hi InfiniteSadness: I've been on Cymbalta (now its generic equivalent) for the past 2+ years. (I'm not exactly sure how long.) It doesn't do allot for me I don't think. It seems like it helps to keep me from diving so low I am in danger of self-harming or making another suicide attempt. It also seems like it has helped with anger control, which used to be a problem for me. But truthfully, after 2+ years, it's really difficult to know. I think, occasionally, about getting off of the medication. But so far I keep coming to the conclusion it's better not to mess with success... even minor success.

[InfiniteSadness]

I agree with the above posters experience. I also have to urinate more on the celexa for some reason. its aggrevating.

[Loial]

I agree that any benefit is a positive one. Why mess with that when you might end up on another med that does even less & have to try many others that may take months to reach where you are at now.

Personally, I've been on 20mg of Citalopram for GAD for 8 months now & it has worked wonders. In that time though I developed some mild depression which it did nothing for. In the end starting on APs for other reasons has helped in that regard but it certainly seems not to work for depression for me.

[InfiniteSadness]

Does anyone else have any experience with celexa?

[splitimage]

I've been on Celexa 40 mg since 2007, along with a bunch of other things. I'm not sure how much it's doing right now, since I've occassionally forgotten to take it for 4 -5 days and didn't feel any different. But I'm afraid to bring up any med changes with my Dr. when I'm in school, since I'm afraid of being destabilized with withdrawal.

splitimage

[theres_always_hope]

Hi, just wanted to share with you my personal experience with Celexa, obviously everyone's different but an opinion never hurts. Having always been diagnosed with generalized anxiety & possible depression, I still managed to live a somewhat happy, normal, successful 22 years of life thus far. At the time, the word "dissociation" would have had little to no meaning or significance to me, that is, until the day it became the parasite that latched on tight, and literally sucked the life out of me. For me, these occasional episodes of "lost touch with reality" began after a traumatic breakup with my longterm boyfriend. He moved out on bad terms so i was living in my apartment alone & didn't have any friends or social interaction. Constantly being alone, I began to feel an eery sense of paranoia creep over me, especially at night, not being used to sleeping alone. Out of the blue while watching a movie or showering I started having random adrenaline rushes followed by a most terrifying yet unexplainable sense of doom that i was no doubt in my mind for some unknown reason-DYING. After a panic stricken 911 call & 2 emergency room visits later, I learned that what I was experiencing were in fact harmless to my body physically. They were anxiety fueled purely psychological panic attacks. As if that's meant to comfort me? Within days I noticed that every evening precisely as the sun began to set, a gradual wave of paranoia and a strange empty, disconnected feeling would creep over me. My vision slowly became foggy with only a clear tunnel view if I focused on a precise object, everything else just seemed to blur together and fade away. The best word I can use to describe this feeling of being would be "surreal" but not in the breathtaking sunset you'd normally think of. The feeling was extremely difficult to comprehend, I just knew I didn't like it one bit. My heart would begin racing & i started to feel like i was disconnected from my own body! I had no idea what was going on. Why was i suddenly terrified & paranoid of everything?! I couldn't even walk properly because i felt like i was floating or swimming. I felt like i was outside of my own body watching my life as a play in a theatre. I felt like I needed to slap myself to "wake up" or snap out of this "brain fog" but the only way to make it stop was to go to sleep & hope it'd be gone in the morning. Within a week of taking Celexa I was 100% back to my normal functioning self. Dr. increased dose from 15mg to 30 after a week & I was set for 6 months until I mentioned to my Dr. That I was still having some depression (worst mistake of my life) she took me straight off the Celexa complety (no gradual weaning) after my body had adjusted & relied on it for almost a year! & told me to try Cymbalta which I had never heard of. Within a week of being on the Cymbalta the dissociation was back-this time permanently! 24/7. I lost my job due to being physically unable to get out of bed from the major depressive episodes, I gained 10 lbs in a week since i no longer had the motivation to go to the gym (or live!) I went crawling back to my Dr. after pushing through the 2 most miserable weeks of my life begging her for the Celexa back. Her response was that I was being "impatient" expecting "instant results" & that I had complained about the Celexa too! So you can see what she was implying. Reluctantly I followed the doctors orders & upped the Cymbalta to 60 mg (double of what she started me on) also adding 200 mg of Lamictal on top of that to "stabilize my mood" as if Im F**king PMS-ing!! So here i am 2 months later waiting for my new psychiatrist appointment because my previous Doctor who put me through h3ll & experimented on me like a Frkn lab rat told me to start making phone calls to see another psychiatrist because my condition was "too complex" her exact words after poisoning my brain's chemicals for months regardless of my constant clear complaints of getting worse. I am currently worse off mentally than i have ever been or imagined i could ever be. My daily norm now consists of sleeping 15+ hours from major depressive disorder fatigue and being up until sunrise from the agonizing insomnia from my worsened anxiety, panic attacks, possibly now also diagnosed with bipolar depression & ocd along with dissociative disorder. Not to mention the misery of getting through a day trying to find motivation to want to live and some hope that this devastating damage can somehow miraculously be reversed. Thanks alot Doc.

[Disorder7]

It gave me a headache. That's the only thing it did. I'm now on lexapro which is supposed to be a "cleaner" version of celexa. I can't tell if it does anything, either. But at least I don't have constant headaches.

[tealBumblebee]

I have been on citalopram 20mg for 7 weeks now. Initially, in a way, it's helped me because I have had less "down" days - but its hard to say if its helping me because I kind of don't feel anyway - up nor down. I don't mean it in a flat affect kind of way; I just feel like "normal" and that i'm taking the pill for nothing. I guess that feeling of "normality" is proof that it works - but I guess it's hard to chalk all that up to a single pill. I only got on it because I wasn't having a lot of extremely tearful days that were starting to interrupt my life a bit. My doctor has offered to up the dosage, but for now - it's okay.

Symptom wise, I still get headaches (that feel like sinus headaches), a second or so of nausea, and loss of appetite. My loss of appetite (that started as a symptom of depression) has kind of plateaued. I have noticed that the earlier I take the pill in the day (say 6-7 pm), the more I want to eat the next day; but if I take it my normal time (8/9pm - later) than my appetite is gone until the latter half of the next day. Before the meds I had lost about 15 pounds in three weeks or so, and now instead of continuing to lose i'm just kind of staying where I am.

My coworker was on it and she said that got extreme dry mouth and that it can be used for people battling weight issues/overeating.

The only thing that I find the citalopram does not help with is anxiety. I don't think it raised it any, I just don't think it helps. So, i've started looking at herbal remedies for that. I started with kava tea, which is helpful at night but I don't love the taste. So, a week or so ago I bought passionflower extract. While it is a potent herb, it's still not strong enough for my level of anxiety. So, now they have recommended a blended herb liquigel (just message me if you want the name, not trying to advertise and stuff) that has a blend of kava, passionflower, valerian root, black kobosh (i think thats what it is) and some other things. I haven't tried it yet because I just bought it but it had good reviews.

Also, stay away from St. Johns wort - the people were adamant about the level of contraindication it had with ssri's in general.

The people at the healthfood store had a book though and it said that although ginko is contraindicated with celexa it is also one of the best herbs to take with citalpram if you are having the side effect of sexual dysfunction.

Hope that helps some! That's just my 7 wk journey thus far.