Posted by torchgrl on February 9, 2000, at 2:46:11
I started taking Celexa about 2 1/2 weeks ago, after tapering off the seemingly ineffective reboxetine. I did about 4 days on 10mg/day, and was tres surprised to notice that it was affecting me somehow almost immediately; then I followed my doctor's instructions to increase to 20mg/day after that for about two weeks, with an intention of continuing to increase the dose to a therapeutic level and keep my fingers crossed :) The main side-effect that I experienced is the apathy...not even apathy, really, just what I referred to in my journal as complacency. Apathy, to me, seems to imply a negative air, and this is/was just an utter lack of...anything. The past couple of weekends, I couldn't even get out of bed on Sunday because I couldn't make any of the necessary minor and basic decisions that that would have entailed (what should I wear? should I even get dressed? should I take a shower now or later or at all? should I leave the house? am I hungry? for what? am I ready to get out of bed? etc etc). Not that I've ever been good at decisions, but when I can't even decide if I'm hungry or not... I think the fact that I managed so sit through 1/2 of "Blood Sport" speaks for itself :) When I saw my therapist on Sat, she immediately remarked on my having a different "energy", and was pretty emphatic at the end of the session that it seemed to her like this wasn't the best of medications for me, and I agreed with her (wouldn't have been able to decide if she hadn't said it, though!). So I called my psych. to tell her I was considering going back to 10 mg, to see if I could get something good from that without the apathy/whatever, although I wasn't optimistic, and she said it probably wouldn't be worth it, since that wasn't even considered enough of a dose to be remotely near therapeutic. So I just said I was going to taper off (same thing!), going back to 10mg for a few days and then off. I don't know if going to 10mg has done much good--I've honestly noticed more of an effect from my new coffee habit, though I suppose it could be Celexa+coffee...
I suppose I should just cross it off the list (if I could decide to stop taking it)... I think that there's a (deeply) underlying fear that if I stop the celexa, I'll plummet back to despair, and that nothingness is somewhat better than crying all the time. However, it would be nice to be functioning at a useful level, rather than having to be on automatic pilot, just going to work and coming home everyday, and spending weekends in bed waiting for it to be time to go to work again. Not mulling anything over, just waiting...
poster:torchgrl
thread:20862
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000128/msgs/20862.html