Cipralex (and Risperidone) side effects - Concerned.

[Boooster]

My girlfriend has been suffering from panic attacks for about 4 months now, and I have a few questions about the drug she is taking 10 mg of Cipralex (escitalopram) daily. She is seeing a psychologist to help her work on her issues, and things are definitely improving, and about 6-7 weeks she started taking cipralex to help her through the process. She used to suffer panic attacks almost every night, but now the Cipralex is like a God-send. There were some side effects in the beginning (constipation, loss of appetite, sexual side effects - which is still there to some degree but her health comes 1st), but recently there is something new.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the Cipralex (I think it is just anxiety), but for the past week she has started to hear voices in her head. Just one voice, calling her name, but it is constantly there from morning to night. Her psychologist says it is just her creativity and a sign that she needs to step up improving herself (my words)... but I've done alot of research on cipralex and one of the serious side effects is hallucination, where you should contact the doctor immediately. The thing is, this only started six weeks after she started taking them, well after the other side effects started. I don't know what to think.
Her psychiatrist prescribed her 1mg of Risperidone to counter-act the voices in her head. My question is this: if these hallucinations appeared so late after she started taking cipralex, is it most likely that it is independent of the drug (her psychiatrist said there are not related)? I just want to be sure she is not hurting herself in case this is a serious side effect of cipralex.

I only reached my tentative conclusion from what I think might be the cause... Regardless, her situation is improved, and has improved since she started on Cipralex.. even her panic attacks that do occur occasionally, she has a much better control over them than she once did (before she would up shaking for half the night, now within 15 minutes she can get control)... Would this be any indication she might control the voice? And is this voice something that will be with her for the rest of her life?

To clarify on her hallucinations: She says that throughout the day she will constantly hear a voice calling her name, maybe once every 5-10 seconds or so. It is never very loud, but it is always there. I think that it also serves to get here even more panicked and she asks me quite often if I "heard that" (a car door slamming in the distance, a distant noise).. This has been going on for about 10 days, and just yesterday the voice changed from only calling her name, but also started asking if she can hear it. The voice ranges from whispering to shouting, happy to angry. I can see her sometimes cocking her head to one side and concentrating, listening to it. Her family has no history of any mental disease, she was healthy until she went through a traumatic experience 6 months ago and all her suppressed problems started coming out. Has anyone heard of something similar to this? Is it something that can worked on psychologically or is it a chemical imbalance?

Thanks for reading this

[RabidBadger]

Hi Boooster

I have been taking Cipralex for over a year and I find it very a very good drug (compared to some of the others I've taken). Yes, there are unpleasant side-effects to start with but they soon disappear.

I would tend to side with the psychologist here and ask is she really hearing voices or does she just think she's hearing voices? It is easy, regardless of what drugs you are taking, to imagine scenarios when you are having problems with anxiety and, not wishing to worry you, I would have thought that the psychologist would start to investigate the possibility of schizophrenia if they thought that she was really hearing voices.

I'm speaking as a layman so don't take my word as gospel.

Best wishes

Chris

[Robbed]

Then again, there is also the possibility that this could be a side effect of the Lexapro. It may be a fairly rare side effect. But there is ALWAYS the possibility that your girlfriend could be that one person in 100 000 who happens to have this problem. As for it starting to happen well after other side effects, this is DEFINITELY possible within a time frame of 6-7 weeks. Remember that these drugs often take up to a couple of months before they have their full effect. So it would be reasonable to assume that, up until that time (or maybe even a little after), new side effects could appear as well. Now if this happened a year after starting Lexapro, then I would say to look other places. But since it happened relatively soon after starting the drug, it didn't happen even after a couple of months of anxiety UNTIL she started the drug, and she has no family history of any type of psychosis, I would tend to blame the Lexapro.

With this said, she could always discontinue the Lexapro to see whether this might help. She might also want to see another doctor/psychiatrist about this problem. But unfortunately, there seems to be a code of silence among MANY health care practitioners when it comes to the side effects of SSRIs.