Tolerance

[f1swede]

Hi! I been on the pain forum for a while now. I'm on Vicoprophen 7.5/200 and Celexa my question is if you can get tolerant to Celexa?. In other words i dont find them working as well as they did. I think my dose is 20mg a day. I feel i'm getting depressed again like i was before. I been like this now for about a week. I been on Celexa for about 10 months. Any input on this would be great. I'm seeing my Doctor next week. Thanks, F1 swede

[LeftCoastChick]

I've done the same thing as Hensley, I've taperer down then switched. I've been on all the drugs minus Prozac and Paxil. These drugs poop out and can have a very short life span.. Each med I changed to seemed to have shorter cycles. The first med I was Luvox,  on lasted quite a while (5 yrs), after that, Zoloft worked for 2 maybe 3 yrs. after that, Effexor 2 months, Celexa worked for 1.5 yrs. Cipralex 6 months, and I went over to Cymbalta which after 2 weeks blew me out of the water with anxiety. There are other classes of drugs that have long term benefits like Lamactil and Abilify , though Bipolar meds, with refractory depression they can work. I have very minimal depression now. I get bummed out maybe 1-2 a week, and much easier  to deal with.
Just food for though.

[Hensley258]

When you switch from one antidepressant to another then the withdrawl is not that bad. It's when you just completly go off all meds that the withdrawl gets bad.

I get a little withdrawl when ever I switch meds, but it's not too bad. I do a slow taper on the one I was taking, then when I get down low, I then add the new one.

Kind of the old crossover trick.

[f1swede]

I forgot to ask , if i need to be put on the same type of meds so i dont whitdraw from the Celexa?

[Hensley258]

As I said Raising the Celexa dosage is always an option. Doing this may offer extended time on that same medication. Just understand that our bodies have an amazing ability to nutralize any substance that it sees as (not made by it)

Raising the dosage will probably buy you more time on the medication, but it sounds like your system has already found the key. When I say "found the key" I mean that your body has finnaly said "ah ha! I now have found a way to destroy this chemical before it has any theraputic effect for you."

You have to trick your body by switching to something new that it has no defence for.
It what I call, "fooling the body to produce a response."

There was a time when doctors thought that one could not build a tolerance to antidepressants. This theroy has been blow out of the water many years ago.

Understand that it is our bodys job to view any synthetic chemical as a poision. It doesn't care if we need it. Our bodys will work constantly trying to find the key to nutralizing that synthetic chemical. Sometimes it takes many years for our bodys to do this, but for some of us it can take a year or even less.

In the past I have been able to find specific antidepressants that have lasted 2 and even 3 years, but as always my body finds the key eventually.

[f1swede]

Thanks for your answer. The way you describe it is right on. Like you said it sneaks up on you, been going down hill for about week and a half now. Thanks for the info this helps alot. Going to my Doc. on thursday and will bring this up. Also i thought raising the dose would be the answer but i'm glad you told me about changing instead. I got on because all the up and downs from painmeds. It seem to work great for awhile but like i said before not so much anymore. Thanks again for getting back to me Hensley258. F1swede

[Hensley258]

Yes you can. SSRI drugs like Celexa seem to be more prone to "poop out' Than SNRI's or Tri-cyclics.

Over time many people can build Tolerance to the same medication.

Due to this fact I have had to make 22 Med changes in the last 17 years. They last for a while and then they can slowly fade. You can usually tell this is happining when it feels like your tapering off the medication, yet your not.

For me it happens slow over time, but once it starts it will eventually get to the point where it's like your not taking it at all.

You may want to switch to Pristiq. It is one medication that has both SSRI and SNRI properties. It also happens to work when drugs like Celexa, Paxil and prozac fail.

Some people can take the same antidepressant for years, but some of us (depending on our metabolism) build up tolerance much faster. Your probably like me in that you build tolerance fast.

In my case when this happens I find that increasing the doasage of the same drug doesn't help much. A change is needed. You can always add a seperate drug to the Celexa to give it more kick, but I think when an AD starts to fail that it best just to change it.