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View Full Version : Lexapro 20mg and ciggarettes?



Brandon114
07-27-2014, 02:46 PM
Hi so I'm completely new to this forum and still somewhat fairly new to treating my hellish anxiety. Anyways, after suffering from nightmarish panic attacks and anxiety ridden days for the past year I finally sought treatment for my current situation. I have settled on the use of 400mg Neurontin for a calming agent to reduce the anxiety whilst working with originally 10mg Lexapro which not too long ago was bumped up to 20mg. I've been on Lex for the past 5 weeks and although from my understandings SSRIs tend to exacerbate anxiety for the early part of the treatment (which indeed happened) but this medication has completely elimated my panic attacks and any slight anxieties I do have are minimal (: However that brings me to my question, I'm not a consitent smoker and have been on and off for a few years and it has never been something I maintain, I recently smoked my last few cigarettes yesterday in response to what seems like my anxiety creeping back in on me. I've tried to read up on how ciggarettes react alongside these meds, some people say it does nothing but others say the chemicals tend to reduce effectiveness of the meds themselves. Now my anxiety isn't full blown again and I'm certainly hoping to not get to that point again, everything was going awesomely it was an almost euphoric feeling the past two weeks and i'm worried i've set myself back because of smoking. It was gradual too, after a few days of smoking I noticed I started getting uneasy with everything again so my question is if I abstain from ciggarettes will everything fall back into place once more? Any form of input would be greatly appreciated thank you!

grcboy77
07-28-2014, 01:55 AM
Mate, I smoked like a fiend on Lexapro 20mg/day until I quit last year.
No difference in effectiveness.
Keep in mind cigarette smoking is a stimulant which may make anxiety worse but it's not the medication failing. It's that you are introducing more anxiety into the equation. Enjoy a drag for me. God I miss it. Lol