10mg or 20 mg lexapro

[coh123]

Just wondering who has had better luck on the higher dose of lexapro for anxiety or is it pretty much the same?

[Jeanjeannie52]

I took lexapro 10 mgs for many years and it worked great for anxiety,  switched to generic lexapro for insurance reasons ,  needed the dose upped to 20 mgs and it began to work again.  So it did make a difference.  I bet it will for you too.  Good luck and blessings on you!

[Paxiled]

My current problems are due to medication, so I'm not of much use.  Before that my main problem was phobias, and the best I got from imipramine and Paxil was freezing my level of phobias so I didn't get any more, but I never lost the old ones.  Klonopin didn't do much for me that I could tell.  But then Paxil turned on me big time and made that old time seem like heaven to me now.  So it goes.

[coh123]

Paxiled, may I ask what you have tried nd what works for you? I know it also depends on why we are taking it!!

[Paxiled]

I went off because it didn't work well enough, but my problem isn't the one I started out with so my experience now is not the common one.

[coh123]

I started it on April 16 so it's just been 4 week or 4 1/2 weeks, I upped it to 15 mg a few weeks ago. I feel pretty good, tired but get through it, still watching panic attacks and they seem to be happening right when my period ends or close to the end, that has happened my last three cycles ( last one ending last friday ) I am going to start 20mg but going to try 10mg in the am and 10mg in the pm, what are your thoughts to that? Again, why did you go off your lexapro?

[nursegirl6572]

It really depends on a lot of things, like if a person has been on other SSRIs in the past (including Lexapro), the severity of anxiety, a person's sensitivity to medications, etc.

Basically, you'd have to try a dosage increase, give it a few weeks and then reevaluate.  I've personally found that I typically needed a higher dose than what I started out at to achieve my desired level  of effectiveness.  That includes Lexapro for me too.  I started out on it at 10mg, and my ending dose was 40mg.  I was on 20mg for quite a long time, and it was effective.  The 10mg helped and made noticeable improvements for me, but the 20mg was definitely a lot better.  This was just MY experience, and it was a long time ago  (late 90's).  

Hang in there.....remind me again how long you've been on the 10mg?  How are you feeling on that dose?  Are you seeing some improvements in your anxiety?  

[coh123]

I may have asked you this already, but why did you go off of it?

[Paxiled]

When I was on it I recall the formal recommendations were generally -- and I say this because individuals don't match the generalizations necessarily -- 10mg for depression and 20mg for anxiety.