Increased anxiety with meds

Good morning..so I started celexa three days ago and I really haven't had side effects aside from light nausea, however I do notice I have a slightly increase in my anxiety...I wonder how long will it take for it to actually start working?...my dr says two weeks...I hope it does because I really want to enjoy my holidays without these anxious, intrusive thoughts ...

Hi Cin

It seems to be the norm to see an increase in your anxiety when starting a medication.

I agree with your doctor you should start to notice improvements after 2 week but it can take upto 8 weeks before you see the full benefit so stick with it and keep us posted.

Hibee

Hey Cln,

I know that the startup period can be rough but work through the coping skills whether its from this site or if you've learned a few on your own. I don't want to come off on the wrong foot but please remember that this medication is not a cure all. The medication will help ease up the feelings associated to your anxiety and intrusive thoughts so that you can use things like CBT or mindfulness to better cope with everything. When I started 3 months ago I really thought that these pills were going to make me back to my normal self but that was exactly opposite of what I should have been thinking. You need to accept that this is who you are and use all the tools you can to manage things better.

The good news is that it sounds like your having very little side effects so at least you might have a smooth transition into the medication.

Aloha,

AK

Cln,

You are doing all the right things...hang in there, you are going to see recovery gains soon.:)

Keep us posted, and we'll do our best to keep you encouraged.:)

S.C.

Remember, you have a condition not a disease!
It will one day pass, the meds you are taking is to give you a quality of life
until you are able to defeat this situation, Peace.

Larry ***

Hi cln777,

I also started taking anti-depression medicine several days ago, and I thought for the first two days that everything was fine. Then yesterday I woke up to go to the bathroom and, when I went back to sleep, all of a sudden, I started to have anxiety.
I tried to tell myself that everything was going to be fine, but it started to get worse. So I started to pray and then decided to call my friend who has been taking the same medicine for years to get some advice about how long it would take for it to work without this anxiety.
It had only been four days, and I was getting scared, but she said that I was going to be fine. I felt a little relieved and didn't want to talk about anxiety anymore, because if I kept talking about it, I thought that it would have freaked me out. So I asked her to change the subject, and we talked about other things.
I took my medicine before I called her, but it took a long time to take effect.
Finally, I started feeling sleepy, because I had been sleeping not too long before. So I told her thanks for listening and fell back asleep until my alarm clock went off.

Anyway, my doctor and many other people said that it would take about two weeks or more (depending on the person) before the medicine would start helping without causing problems (such as anxiety), since it needs to get into the system first.
Hopefully, this is true, and everything will be fine for both of us in a few weeks.
So, be strong and hang in there.
Don't worry. You're not alone.
Keep us posted.

Oh, about your anxiety, do you take medicine for it or distract yourself?
I do both of those things, but I was just wondering how you deal with it.