I’ve been coming off citalopram really slowly. My doctor prescribed me the liquid form and I’ve been reducing my dosage by 1 drop (2mg) a week.
Thursday was the day I stopped completely, and unfortunately I’ve started having withdrawal symptoms: brain zaps, feeling like I have influenza, struggling with a very sudden depressive/anxious episode.
I’m following advice I’ve read about returning to the last dose before I started noticing any withdrawal symptoms (which, in retrospect, was 4mg) and then reducing from that even slower.
Does anyone have any advice for managing the withdrawal symptoms while I readjust to my dosage?
Hey, thanks for following up! I’ve gone back to 4mg, and I’m tapering off back to 0 more slowly. I have the liquid citalopram, and 1 drop is 2mg so I can only really reduce by that step size. But I’m “faking” reducing to 3mg by alternating between 4mg one day and 2mg the next day. It seems to be working so far.
The other thing I found that helped on the day I was experiencing the most discontinuation symptoms was dancing. I was at a music show and despite feeling anxious and a bit dizzy, dancing to some very rhythmic music helped settle that.
Glad to hear your slower taper is helping out! Oh man…on one of my worst days of zaps and dizziness I decided to go for a walk jamming to music then play with my cat. HUGE MISTAKE lmao. Trying to dance around would have definitely put me further on my ass than that already made me, but I’m glad it helps you lol!!