Celexa nightmare

[BigTeddy]

Hello everyone! I'm new here and wanted to share my experience with celexa and see if anyone has had a similar experience. So I've been suffering from anxiety and depression for the last 4-6 months. I get really nervous over nothing like going to eat with friends or watching a ball game in the evening at my house. So I went to the psychiatrist and was prescribed celexa 10 mg for five days and then told to up the dosage to 20 mg. I was also prescribed trazodone to help me sleep. So I took the meds as instructed and the only side effect I experienced was a bit of insomnia on the 5th day. On day 6 I increased my dosage as instructed and I felt nauseous all day. That evening I began to feel really weird. I was grinding my teeth, so I went in the bathroom to splash some water on my face and try and calm down and i noticed that my pupils were fully dilated. I started sweating profusely and was just pacing up and down my hallway and really beginning to freak out. Finally it got to be too much to handle and I called my mother and told her to come and get me and take me to the hospital because I was dying. The doctor at the ER told me I just had a panic attack and gave me a shot of Ativan and sent me on my way. I didn't sleep at all that night and the next day my teeth were still grinding and my pupils were still huge. I called my doctor and she said discontinue the meds and she would call in a prescription for Zoloft for me to start taking next week. I'm just super scared right now and I feel as though I might have had a mild case of serotonin syndrome so I'm scared to take more SSRI's. has anyone experienced anything similar to this. I just really need advice because I'm super scared and freaked out right now. Worried ill never get back to normal. Sorry for the long post. Thanks!

[Bello1993]

I felt nauseous all day. That evening I began to feel really weird. I was grinding my teeth! I've been on and off antidepressants for about 3 years now and this is exactly how I feel most of the time unless i lie down then I just feel dizzy, i do a lot of pacing as well. I wondered if you suffer from any mental confusion? People just always say excercise is the most important thing for anxiety as long as you don't feel too run down by the constant worrying, which i tend to, and then get physically unwell through straining yourself

[alankay]

Yes you can have experiences like this but they often pass. If this is not tolerable to you try another ssri. Many can tolerate these ssri startup issues but others need to try another ssri or a lower dose. Some have a benzo added for a week or two then drop/taper the benzo. The benzo will counter act many of the issues when starting an ssri but most don't need it if they hang in there with it. Serotonin syndrome on a base dose of an ssri would be rare. I think you are anxious. I've been there. :( But I got better too. :) Alankay

[Lingua]

It sounds like you're pretty sensitive to the side effects. Talk to your doctor about whether it makes sense for you to start the Zoloft more slowly When I started Celexa, I sometimes cut the pills in half and increased them 5-10 mg at a time.

[blondieqtpie]

I'm taking celexa and found it took 2 months to adjust... Got worse n
Before better /all meds should be used as they say

[courtgood1]

I havent gotten to the point of a full blown panic attack but I started on Zoloft then went to celexa because I switched doctors. I just stopped taking celexa because I felt the anxiety was more prominent when I took it, so I just kinda weened myself off.