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From: Connie F
Date: 04/11/03
Time: 19:40:05
Remote Name: 65.26.156.216
Well, I can really relate. I am off Celaxa now I went off cold turkey 2 times and the symptoms were pure hell, I then went on the sister drug Lexapro and it was no better. I have been off them all since August. I am worse now than I was before I started taking them, I work at home because I can't go out into the world and work. I just walked one block to vote and I am sweating like a pig and shaking. I started having so many problems on my job while in the 2nd year of Celexa and had to stop working. I was on all these drugs for almost 4 years and topped out at 80 Mgs a day plus other drugs for the Celexa and 40mgs a day for the Lexapro. The inability to do things and tolerate things made going to work immpossible, then they would add different meds such as Risperdal and the night seizures stared. I also lost a lot of weight but it didnt stay off, I am probably 20 to 30 pounds overweight now. I got so nervous and intolerebnt of any thing anyone said to me at work and I was so constantly jumpy that I started drinking more than I ever had. I now feel I have a problem with alcohol due to trying to medicate myself from all the symptoms of the meds and then the resultant withdrawal symptoms of the meds. I only drink one to four drinks a day but for a small woman eho has taken lots of Tylenol in my life I feel I don't need it, and I feel the same way about the drinking that you feel about the Celexa, I can't stop, but the reason is that I just subsituted the alcohol for the Celexa or Lexapro. I used to be able to choose the alcohol or not but then to get off the meds I had to find something to replace it or I wouldn't have gotten off them. I feel that Celexa and Lexapro have ruined my life, I don't think I will ever be the same. I have gone to meetings and the longest I can go without a drink at all is like 4 days, the longest I went without pills while on them was 3 days. I can't think, I am exhausted because I sleep 4 to 5 hours a night. While on the pills I had to go to the emergency room at least once a month with a spastic bile duct (another form of seizure), thank God those have all but gone away. I had to go to bio-feedback therapy for my bladder as a result of the risperdal and the new drug in the family of it, I at 48 am too young to be suffering incontinence and still have a so called healthy bladder.I need to go to work and I can't. I have tried cognitive behavioral therapy but I have to resort to the usually poor treatment I get as a charity case because I have no health insurance. I really can relate because I feel incapacitated and ruined. All I can say about the withdrawal is I feel it would have been easier to kick a heroin addiction.