Missed doses

[lookin]

The last week of January I missed a few of my Lexapro 10mg doses and one of my intuniv 1.5mg doses. On Wednesday, I had a panic attack (I think it was a panic attack). I was shaking for two hours. The following days I was still shaky, and my heart would race every now and again. I also had a dry mouth. I haven't had much of an appetite.

Since Wednesday I haven't missed a dose, and the symptoms have been going away, but I still have anxiety, mostly at night, especially when it's bedtime.

I have a psychiatrist appointment with a new psychiatrist on Wednesday, and I plan to tell him what happened, but I was wondering what you guys think.

Is this anxiety from being nervous about the appointment? Why is it mostly at night? I take my medication at night, so could it be wearing off around nighttime?

[gypsylee]

Hi and welcome :)

I'm not familiar with Intuniv but SSRIs (Lexapro) have a very long half-life so you can miss doses and not have any effect. Not sure about the Intuniv but I'd say the anxiety is unrelated to missing doses or them wearing off (also, if you take them at night why would it wear off at night time?)

It's probably because of the new psychiatrist appointment or even just general anxiety. I usually have the worst anxiety when I wake up but if my nervous system is on high alert I get it at bedtime as well. One theory is that sleeping and eating trigger anxiety because those are the times when you're most likely to be attacked by a predator (eating because digestion uses energy). So if your nervous system is highly sensitised it's a basic survival mechanism, which is obsolete but your mind/body doesn't know that.

So hopefully you'll feel less anxious after seeing the new psychiatrist but anxiety is a very tricky thing and it's hard to pinpoint the exact reason for it a lot of the time, which becomes a vicious cycle because we can't work out why we're anxious!

Anyway, good luck with your appointment..
Gypsy x

[fixmybrokenmind]

It could very likely be a placebo of missing the pill giving you anxiety and a combination of the new appointment perhaps? However if you missed a few doses, do your best to re-establish you regular schedule, especially if it was helping

For some anxiety is always worse at certain times of the day. For myself, the early morning has always been the hardest and the last hour before bed can present challenges as well.