What do I expect getting off Celexa Cold Turkey

[Booja]

Hi I have been on Celexa for 1 year and 3 months. Everytime I would miss a pill or two I could feel it in my mood and behavior. It has helped me tremendously, although emotionally I've felt numb, and sex does almost nothing for me. Well, I happened to forget to take Celexa for a few days and have not had my usual side effects, so I decided to go a few more days. Then came the headaches and the nausea. Now I'm on day 7 and and the headaches have been gone for the last 2 days but the nausea is still here. It's no fun but it's managable. It reminds me of when I was pregnant, but at a much lower level. One thing that I've decided to do is to exercise. I figured that I had to get seratonin to my brain somehow, so I've commited myself to doing somekind of excersize so tht my brain doesn't suffer too badly. I've been very dizzy as well but none of those shocks that people have written about. I didn't realize that Celexa causes weight gain, which I have experienced and I'm hoping with the exercise and being off Celexa I can get it off again. One thing that I noticed recently that being on Celexa caused me to be very tired. I would sleep 8-10 hours a night and still be very tired. I'm hoping that as long as the depression doesn't kick back in again I will not need so much sleep. So right now my plan of action is to exercise, and to try to remain calm in high stress situations by meditating and self talks. So far I feel fine. I used to fly off the handle at minute things but Celexa has helped me just take a step back and organize my thought process and handle things calmly and with ease. I'm just hoping to get emotion back into my life. That is what I really miss. Do you think my plan of action is safe. I know that my doctor told me that I should wean myself off, and that was my original plan, but the cold turkey hasn't been so bad, thus far.

[Booja]

Hi Chris

It sounds like a good idea to try to get off Celexa slowly. I probably should have done that myself. It seemed like everything was going well. Then I got laid off from my job yesterday and I think because of being in the process of trying to get off of Celexa Cold Turkey I've suffered tremendously. I've had crying jags, I've been shaking uncontrolably at time, I've had borderline panick attacks which I was able to calm myself out of. I've been tired, nauseas and weak. I've been dizzy and just a major mess in the last day. I'm sure that it wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't in this withdrawal process. But my husband has been a huge support to me and helping with the kids so I could have time to myself to just rest and get through this. It's been a tough day, and I've thought about reaching for the bottle, but I've been through a lot in the last week or so of getting off Celexa that I just have to keep going now. I just hope it gets better.  A part of me is actually happy to be able to be home for a while and I have a lot of great ideas of how I want to spend my time off and all, but even with those plans this whole thing has hit me hard. So I think that stopping it slowly is probably a better idea. Good luck!! It is so hard to have to deal with these issues. All we can do is work against it the best we can...

[chris931]

I had that thought of stopping cold turkey, but i'm afraid I been on it for about 8 months now and all of a sudden recently I got huge boobs I don't want to gain.  I'm trying to come off it gradually though I started today I was on 40mg's today I took 20mg's I think I might do that for 3 weeks...then take 20mg's every other day for 2 weeks.  I'm still taking my klonopin though which I def. need.

[Jade59]

Hello!  It sounds like you have a good plan.  It's already day 7 and if anything serious was going to happen I think it would have by now so just keep going.  To address the weight gain.....I was on AD's for 24yrs and very slowly gained about 20 pounds.  I just stopped taking them one day and didn't suffer anything like I have read on this forum and as time went by I ended up dropping 20 pounds in 2mos.....I didn't realize the weight gain was due to the AD's so it just melting off was a wonderful surprise.  I have also been walking and I've actually become a little addicted to it!  My body looks better and it combats the anxiety too.  Not completely, but I can tell a difference if I don't walk for a few days.  And as far as the depression goes, once I stopped the AD's I seemed to feel BETTER than I did on them and that was 4yrs ago.  I still have some depression and anxiety, but I always have and since I'm 48 I don't expect it to ever go away.  I have just learned to live with it.  Excersize, healthy diet and keeping consistent sleep schedule has helped me the most.

Your doing great and I hope you continue to feel better every  day.