SSRI effects or something else?

[WiSp]

Since like 2 months I've been living without much exercise, and it got worse the last month. I'm in celexa's withdrawal since 10 days, and I noticed that I get dizzy and have headache more when I do any exercise like just walking. And it's not only at the beginning. It seems to stay as long as I move, and even after it needs a time to get lower. Celexa has always done dizziness to me and headaches. I remember even before to stop exercise, my headaches were getting much worse when I was on my bike. Now that my body is not trained to exercise anymore, I can understand that it's hard when I walk etc. But it also add pain to headaches and I'm much more dizzy when I do exercise. I'm beginning to wonder if it's just celexa withdrawal. To get worsen symptoms while you move is not supposed to be related to anxiety. But it could be related to celexa. I've also no flu and the only not normal thing on my last blood test was direct bilirubine 2 units higher than the maximum (42) but doctors were not alarmed by this. It's related to liver. And I doubt it can have a link with my current problems. Is there anyone with an experience like this? Of dizziness and headaches on a SSRI that got worse when they do exercise?

[dancer67]

When I came off my Effexor my w/d symptoms lasted for at least 2 months. I would not be exercising while you are in w/d from Celexa. Give your body some time to heal.

[WiSp]

It's pretty unusual to say as an advice to avoid exercise to get better. But headaches and dizziness raise much more when I take the stairs so...I'm worried too because I lost 16 pounds during this story...and tonight I check again, 2 pounds lost again. I went from 154 to 136. But I think it happens to some people here too during their anxiety crisis. At the drugstore someone said that the worsen symptoms while doing exercise is surely linked to withdrawal. She was using a voice with assurance. She also answered to the question I asked here some time ago..."for how long". She said usually 2-3 weeks. She added "hang on. it will be over soon". Of course I always have a doubt of "something else" I may have. But my discoveries here and with the drugstore helps. I feel less worried. She said "you can't imagine how much weird things I've seen when people are on a withdrawal and it goes away when it's over".

My headaches are not at the same place, it's random all around the head. But the most scarry thing is the psychological stuff. I've fears that I never had before. They pop up from nowhere. If it is said that anxiety can do almost anything, I think some meds can do even more. I'm pretty sure the woman at the drugstore would have said "I've seen this too with celexa". But I forgot to ask. I will probably phone again later

[Door]

How long were you on Celexa?  I ask because withdrawal symptoms are rare unless a person has been on a drug for at least 3 months.  It could be anxiety.  It's often confusing as anxiety disguises itself with headaches, dizziness, nausea, muscles spasms, blurred vision, you name it.

I used to be afraid to exercise.  It provoked panic attacks.  I had to do CBT and desensitization to overcome the phobia.

[WiSp]

Withdrawal are rare? Oh my god. Not for me. Anyway, I'm on it since the start of October. I never had exercise phobias and never been scarred about my heart (It's almost the only thing I've not been scarred of). Celexa has given me strong headaches and dizziness since the start, but raising heart beat worsen the symptoms. Like probably doing exercise during the flu worsen the symptoms I guess. I know there is anxiety behind a lot of symptoms but trust me there's a real link between my heart beat and symptoms. Until I start to move, it's tolerable. Celexa has been a real poison for me. This is why I'm stopping it. I spent one month at 10mg and I stopped.

My concern was about exercise to worsen the symptoms. Before to realize it, I thought they were pretty random. But with too much coincidences I finally understood. And then it worried me. I remember now...all the times I used my bike in October...at this time my anxiety was not so bad. And I remember the headaches to get stronger while I was on my bike. Or when I was doing long walks. Now I don't do any exercise and then my heart goes fast for little moves because I'm not active anymore. SO, I can get stronger headache and dizziness just by taking the stairs. Sooner or later you see the link between exercise and your symptoms. I was just wondering if it was normal, related to celexa or not. It seems that the answer is yes.

[Door]

I just read your other post.  I'd give it 2 weeks.

[dancer67]

It's pretty unusual to say as an advice to avoid exercise to get better.

It is safer to avoid exercising if you are indeed in withdrawal from an SSRI/SSNRI. Especially if you have dizziness. You may end up getting injured.

Taking some time off from exercise so your body will heal, is the best thing you can do right now.

As the above PP said, I would only give your symptoms another few weeks then check with your Dr.

[WiSp]

Thank you everyone. I've never been in a so hard withdrawal so it's really scary. Plus my weight dropped from 154 to 136 pounds. If I drop again, according to health weight I will really need to get weight or be in danger. I sleep until 1pm so I don't really eat a lot, some cereals and I take a real meal at 5:00pm and I eat some stuff during the evening but I guess it's not enough. I was sleeping a lot to avoid the withdrawal the most I can (I'm ok when I sleep, I'm not conscious of anything and my dreams are free of anxiety). But it surely not helped the weight. I guess I should start to wake up more early and eat...My brother says that anxiety sucked up this weight and is directly responsible. But I'm not out of this and I need to stop the loss. I'm almost thin as when I was in high school.

[Door]

WiSp, how long have you been off Zoloft?  Sometimes, an SSRI can stop working, but if a person decides to taking it again some time later, it'll work.

[WiSp]

How do you know that, Door? I thought about this too...but I think I've done too much during this time (I pushed myself to the limits) and zoloft was maybe not enough. I took zoloft several times during several years, often one year minimum without stopping. I've never known how much zoloft worked, because I was not really in high stress situations at this time of my life. But of course I was feeling anxiety free. Even my new psychiatrist was wondering why I got anxiety back on it, and I'm going to ask my old psychiatrist too since I moved back.

[Door]

^^^^
Every doctor has told me this.  And I mean every single one.  I had been on Lexapro for 6 years and it seemed to had stopped working.  When I got back on it 8 months later, my anxiety went way down to manageable levels.  I have no idea why this is.  I am just accepting it and enjoying the benefits.

I found this on crazymeds 0538 website:

For most people SSRI poop-out is not an issue, but for some any SSRI will work great for a few months to a couple years or more and then suddenly stop working. Fortunately you can just move on to the next one until the poop-out happens again. What happens when you run out of SSRIs? By then the drug companies will have come out with at least one new one, but guess what? Most people who experience poop-out can go back to their first SSRI and start all over again!

[WiSp]

But how to know when it's time to go back on a med? How to know if the time passed without it was enough to hope it to work again? You know, with zoloft I experienced something really weird. During the last year, some side effects that I only have when I start it, were back again for one or two days and disappearing. It happened 4 or 5 times in a year. It was never happened on the other years. It was maybe an alarm that something has changed. I spent a lot of time in a very stressing life and with no anxiety at all, only some stress. Then one day anxiety got back and was set to stay...at this time I've understood that zoloft was not helping anymore.

Even if we can use the same old SSRI again and have it working, I don't know if I will return on zoloft because even if anxiety was out, my emotions were really erased. I was a zombie and I knew I could not live this way forever. I was feeling like a machine. Productive, but with no passion, no emotions, no hope, no dreams. It was the reason why I thought to leave zoloft. I was not side effects free, but the few were not so terrible. I was sweating much more than others, I had little muscle spasms and to watch movies on a giant screen was too much for my eyes. But those things are not a good reason to stop, especially if anxiety disappeared. The only real problem was for emotions and it was worrying me more and more. At this time I had no idea it could stop working. When it happened, I had now 2 good reasons to do it. I'm still in a withdrawal (celexa) and still very sick because of it. But I can't give up (I'm really stubborn and it's probably this that saved me from despair). I plan to try prozac next...Or maybe buspar. Maybe it's the time to try something else than a SSRI. I will talk about this stuff with my psychiatrist. I've still hope in meds. If celexa is very powerful to make me sick and worse for anxiety, I hope there's one powerful too but going in the opposite direction and free me. With the forum I've also discovered something weird. All people that got sick on paxil and zoloft, were ok on celexa, for example. And I've been ok on paxil and zoloft, but celexa destroyed me completely. I may dream, but it seems to exist some kind of polarity...until I find people that paxil, zoloft, and celexa were horrible or all good. But for now, all the people I read fit perfectly in the polarity. I even asked someone (a celexa fan) what else make her sick (she can't tolerate paxil and zoloft), to try it myself because I seem to be the inverse of her. Well don't take my thoughts seriously, it's just intriguing and I really don't want to try another that will make me worse. If I choose prozac it's because it's one of the most used, and it's old so we know a lot of stuff on it, it was a big half life so it's soft for side effects and withdrawal.

[Door]

Wow, that's an interesting observation!  I am a Celexa/Lexapro lover while I could not tolerate Paxil or Zoloft.  With Zoloft, I felt really out of it, and with Paxil, I became a compulsive eater.

I tried Prozac.  It worked when I had only depression.  When I tried it again for anxiety, my anxiety went up.  Because we seem to be polar opposites, Prozac might work for you!

Other meds I have tried for anxiety are Remeron and Cymbalta.  Remeron made me very groggy, and I couldn't stand it.  Cymbalta just didn't work, absolutely had no effect on my mood.  Maybe you could ask your doctor about these?

[WiSp]

I tried Prozac.  It worked when I had only depression.  When I tried it again for anxiety, my anxiety went up.  Because we seem to be polar opposites, Prozac might work for you!

Yes there's really something to think about...But I'm not sure if we can say that prozac was not for you because you say it worked for depression. I thought about remeron too. Cymbalta is out of the line. Not covered by insurance and I don't really trust the newest meds. I prefer to let time pass, to let them (scientists) study it carefully. Remeron makes a lot of people to sleep however I think. I think it's even sometimes used for sleep problems. Well I will surely try prozac before anyway. My priority always been anxiety. Beside it, I don't care so much about depression. It's anxiety that is controlling my life. Often I've not even the time to be sad or depressed because I've too much anxiety and all my mind focus is on it. If prozac boosted your anxiety, yes it could erase mine if my theory is correct.

You know what? It could be interesting, or at least fun, to create a kind of database on anxietyzone to see what was tolerated for who, and to determine if some polarities really exist. It could maybe help people to decide what to try, when their first try failed. I think there are two possibilities: polarities really exist, or all the thing is much more complex and must be considered random. Even if polarities exist, I guess it's not so simple and not black or white. But in "overall" it could be real. I was more talking about the fact that you are sick on it or not, than about if it works or not. But I think we can assume that if it works, it's because you was able to tolerate it. Otherwise you can't continue so it will not work. I doubt that it could work even if someone is crazy enough to live in pain for a month or more, just to see if it can work.

[WiSp]

I forgot to say, a database could do more...we could see fast what SSRIs appear to be the most efficient for anxiety or depression. It would not be official and serious but surely useful. And for a change, it would be the people who decide if it works or not. Not just some bunch of scientists taking notes about what they see.

[electracat]

I would love to see that! Would be helpful to know what's worked and not worked for people, in an easily accessible way.

[Door]

Drug  ↓    Brand  ↓    Class  ↓    2007 Prescriptions (in millions)  ↓
Here are the rankings of the most commonly prescribed anti-depressants in 2007 in the US.  I got this info from wikipedia.

1.  Sertraline, Zoloft    
2.  Escitalopram, Lexapro
3.  Fluoxetine, Prozac    
4.  Bupropion, Wellbutrin    
5.  Paroxetine, Paxil    
6.  Venlafaxine, Effexor    
7.  Citalopram, Celexa    
8.  Trazodone, Desyrel    
9.  Amitriptyline, Elavil    
10.  Duloxetine, Cymbalta    
11.  Mirtazapine, Remeron    
12.  Nortriptyline, Pamelor    
13.  Imipramine, Tofranil    

[WiSp]

One day I wanted to compare side by side all SSRIs and some others. And crazymeds was the most informative site but I wanted a kind of board to really compare everything on a same page. I found nothing so I created my own in excel. For each med it contains:
- Their name with all the variants
- For anxiety, panic, depression or/and social anxiety (marked with a "X" and a red one for "officially approved")
- How hard is the withdrawal
- Side-effects (common SSRI symptoms, common NRI symptoms, etc and some with specific stuff added)
- The better thing concerning the med
- The worst thing
- Half-life
- The "ready state"
- The time to wait for the good effect
- The time to leave the body (calculated with the half-life. It's not the withdrawal total time)
- Sold in Canada or not (they are all sold in US but not all in Canada and it's useful to know before to choose)
- Other useful info like: not a good idea if diabetes

Because it was for me, it's all in french (my primary language) and I've not added other illness like OCD and bipolar disorders because I've only anxiety and depression problems. But I could translate and add a column for OCD and BD depending if people are interested to see this excel file. I will not post anything because it's like spam but I can give a link in a private message for people wanting to see. The data is entirely based on crazymeds.com so don't blame me for anything in it. I've just organized the data. By simply checking it we can see in a second that the meds with the most "X" are lexapro, effexor and paxil. It doesn't mean the most efficient! Be careful how you interpret it. The "X" only mean what they can do. And it's not because you can cure 4 illness that you can cure GAD better than another med, curing itself only GAD and depression.

It's not the database we talked about, but it's not bad anyway to decide what to try next. If someone want to see the file, just send me a private message.

[WiSp]

Forget about the private message. I decided to create a blog space here on anxietyzone and to put the file there. So, anyone interested just have to check my blog by using the shortcut menu on anxietyzone forums.

[Penny10]

I found this post very interesting, as did many others. I will add my experience as well.

Cymbalta and dizziness:
I found that Cymbalta worked the best for me for anxiety. I found Prozac worked well for depression. The most noticeable side effect and the withdrawal experience was dizzying dizziness with any quick movement of the head (witch is attached to your body of course). For example lying down at a normal pace would cause one head to feel like it was spinning in tight little spirals over and over. The spinning didn't stop when you were still but, lasted maybe 15 seconds (much like a spinning top rather than the usual dissipation of normal dizziness when sit you down). I have not heard or experienced this effect when exercising but if I did I would certainly choose another SSRI.

Anxiety Disorder Subsets??;
I also liked that idea about the relationships between drugs and side effects, and how people who take drug "A" and dislike it might also dislike drug "B" and visa-versa. All great scientific discoveries start with keen observations , then research, then conclusions. I don't know if drug companies would want to fund research that would assist in reducing the odds of find the most suitable SSRI on that roulette wheel. Perhaps a government funded research program (as long as you have universal health care) or indeed do the research your self. I am certain there are professional researchers among us to provide advice on ethics and formal procedures concerning research. If you created a questionnaire I am certain everyone would be happy to fill it out. Perhaps a separate category to add to this forum called ; "Observations, Questionnaires and Data".

[WiSp]

I just don't know what the staff and owner of anxietyzone would think about this. I know that they are open to suggestions. A post is not enough to people to see a questionnaire and do it. It must be on the main pages, somewhere to see it when you enter the site. I guess I should post this in the suggestion area.

It's sure that the more coincidences we find with answers, the more we will be able to see that there is no coincidence at all. I'm a bit surprised that no one already thought about this. And even if we can't no for sure if a polarity exist, we could have new stats about how good or bad are meds for people and for what purpose. But it should be controlled too. Or automated bots on the web could affect the results. It should be only for members.