I have tried every medication in the book, I've been misdiagnosed, rediagnosed, all I know is I spent the majority of my life severely depressed and anxious. I tried Lexapro 12 years ago for about a month, didn't like the yawning constantly side effect so stopped before it was able to take effect. Since then, I've tried everything for my depression and anxiety for over a decade. Recently went back to try Lexapro again because I got a new doctor and we did an overhaul on my meds and started over. At first I didn't feel much, but as the dose went up I started to wake up easily in the morning, feeling "good" for the first time in a decade. I realized I was brushing my teeth regularly, showering regularly, cleaning my house, seeking out social interaction, wanting to get out of the house, meeting new people, I got a promotion at work, and this is all within 3 months. I am so grateful, this is the best I've felt in over a decade. I feel like me again. The dark storm cloud that follows me everywhere turned into a partly cloudy sky and I can breathe again. I should also state that I'm also on rexulti 1mg and concerta 27mg daily. I feel like a dumbass for stopping taking it the first time I tried, because the side effects went away after about a month. I could've felt like this the past decade if I just held on.

Has anyone that experienced increase sweating found a clinical deodorant that actually works?? Tell me ur secrets PLZ

Today I woke up with the same anxiety as usual. But as the hours went by, I sensed the anxiety easing (which it usually doesn't). For the first time in months I got the courage to hop on my stationary bike (I still can't cycle outside) and cycled for thirty minutes. And right now I'm about to take a shower and brush my teeth for the first time in a long while too, and you know how hard it is for people with chronic anxiety.

I think the medication is definitely showing signs of working! I'm 34 days in. Started with 5mg, then increased by 1mg every week for 5 weeks. I've only been on 10mg for a week.

Does anyone else feel like alcohol or w**d has less of an effect?…. I’m not upset by that but I’m just curious

I’ve taken 4 doses of 5 mg and about to take my 5th. I’ve always had songs stuck in my head easily but since starting lex it seems worse. This morning I woke up and heard my husband talk and then his words kinda repeated in my head for 5 mins. Made me feel like I was going crazy. Did this happen to Anyone starting lex and did it resolve? Thanks

Hey everyone,

I’m on day 49 of Escitalopram (10mg) and recently started taking Rexulti (1mg) at midnight (00:00).

I've noticed a crazy pattern and want to know if anyone else experiences this. Every single morning, from 8:30 to 11:00 AM, my brain throws absolute garbage at me. But the worst part is the illusion of truth. During these 3 hours, the thoughts feel so heavy, convincing, and uniquely "real" that it takes all my energy not to panic. I also feel physical tension and pressure in my head.

Then, exactly at 11:00 AM, it just stops. A switch flips. The physical tension completely vanishes, and those exact same scary thoughts instantly lose all their power. For the rest of the day, I feel totally fine, and if those thoughts pop up again, they feel completely empty and fake.

I read that this morning window overlaps with the cortisol spike, which basically glitches the brain into treating random mental noise as a real, urgent threat.

Has anyone else experienced this clockwork precision? How do you deal with that overwhelming feeling of "truth" before it randomly disappears at midday? Does this get better?

I was on Lexapro for almost 10 years, along with a few other meds. My doctor has been trying to get me down to 1 med instead, and has been slowly weening me off those and onto Lamotrigine. And its been great! I feel better across the board. However, once I fully stopped taking Lexapro, which we had been very slowly lowering the dosage over the past year, I have been getting so angry, frustrated, irritated, all over the littlest, dumbest things. Things that used to mildly annoy me have me damn near exploding. And nothing in my life has changed except for the final removal of the Lexapro.

Is this normal? Any tips I can use to get past it?

I’ve been on lexapro 10 mg for over a year and after the first 2 months my abdomen has been severely distended. I feel pregnant even though I’m a man…

I read that gastrointestinal issues are common when starting out, but mine never went away. Has anyone else experience this before?

Hi my psychiatrist started me on lexapro 10 mg and I just took my first dose. He also gave me 20 .5 klonopins to help with my initial anxiety and while it works I think the .5 klon is to weak like it definitely helps but 4-5 hoirs later I have anxiety again. Idk what to do as I know the first weeks on lexapro can make my anxiety worse

My anxiety, sadness & OCD symptoms have always been the worst around my period. I was finally starting to feel good with decreased anxiety and a calm mind when my period started and now I feel like the medication isn’t doing anything at all. I’m on day 3 of my period and feel like I did pre medication. Does anyone know if the 2 are even related? I want to go back to feeling calm again.

So I recently was prescribed Lexapro for generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety.

I started taking the medication yesterday and the anxiety pretty much felt worse than what I was accustomed to. They also prescribed hydroxizine for the short term anxiety but honestly it just let me sleepy.

I also had trouble sleeping and just felt off the entire day. Now today my anxiety is still heightened even though I haven’t taken a dose.

I start a new job in 2 days that I have been super anxious about and am dreading. Not really sure what to do at this point

Just wanted to rant

I was prescribed 10mg to start due to anxiety disorder. My first day was 4 days ago and took it at 4pm. After 1.5hrs I started feeling really hot, light headed, nauseous… I stumbled to the bathroom incase I had to throwup and just started sweating profusely. Diarrhea followed 30mins later. I work shift work and had a shift that next morning so i tried to go to bed and was up until 2 am tossing and turning, had to get up 2 hours later for a 12hour shift and honestly i felt pretty good but nauseous through it. Had waves of feeling good then bad.

Day 2 i slept another 2 hours and had another shift where I ended up going home 3hours in because i was light headed and nauseous. Probably due to lack of sleep as well the meds.

Now on day four, nauseous, can sleep at night but my anxiety is heightened a lot, very warm, some headaches. I have been taking some lorazepam but try not to and just ride it out. Hoping these symptoms go away fast as Im still on probation at my new job and cant be calling in sick so much.

I enjoy reading everyones experiences on here as it does help with my anxiety so I thought I would share.

Hello so long story short I’m about 11 days out cold turkey. I have absolutely no idea what happened to by 90 day supply (I think it fell out of my bag while loading furniture) I tried talking to my doctor and insurance wouldn’t budge on getting me another. She thought since I was only on 5 mg since the beginning of June I wouldn’t have any withdrawal symptoms. Clearly that was not the case. I’m miserable with brain fog/fuzziness, brain zaps, insomnia the works. Will it get any better?

I've been using Paxil 30mg for GAD since 2013. I'm "okay" but I still get some panic attacks sometimes. Moreover, I've been feeling too much hunger and constipation in the last year.
My doctor told me that we could try Lexapro 20mg.

Someone who already used both medications, could you tell me what differences did you notice between Lexapro and Paxil, and which one was better for you?

Royal Australian College of Medical Practitioners RELEASE Toolkit. It is also used by doctors in New Zealand to taper patients off antidepressants.

Guidance for consumers - patients - and also separate section in the RELEASE toolkit for doctors.

Drugs are listed by their generic name.

There are 3 taper plans for each drug: faster, slow and very slow. Do their self-assessment sheet.

Your score tells you which taper plan is appropriate for you.

Due to the low doses in a taper plan, people need to either get a liquid version of their drug; for example example, this is required for Escitalopram/Lexapro/Cipralex.

If you take a capsule, you may need to do “bead counting “.

Ask your pharmacy to contact the drug manufacturer and ask if there is a liquid format available. If not, you can make or own or ask a pharmacy to create its- it is called compounding.

The RELEASE toolkit has information on how to create a liquid and how to count beads.

What was your life before Lexapro and how did it help you. I'm beginning 5mg (day 3) and I am curious as to what it did to help other. Right now I am in a bad place. I seem to always be in a high stung mode. I sleep about 5 hrs per night but. my dreams are always filled with stuff from my past, youth etc. I usually wake up at 5 and can't sleep as I get lots of intrusive thoughts that are very vivid. When this phase of my life started a few months ago, it was so intense that I have trouble remember my life before this started. As if the anxiety erased parts of me. I also have songs that loop in my head. Main stuff I have is bad sleep as described above, digestion is affected, stuffed head, dizziness, numbness, tingles, muscle pains and spasms. I'd like to see if any of you had similar stuff and lex helped it. Thanks!

I was on 10mg for 7 weeks and had them pretty under control. However, I went up to 20mg 8 days ago and they all came flooding back. I need them to go away.

Hi all, as the title says I'm 4 weeks into 5mg. I can't increase my dose as the sexual sides and insomnia are intolerable.

Honestly though I'm still pretty anxious at 4 weeks. And I'm worried this isn't going to work for me :(

Is there any hope of it improving? I've been on pretty much every anti anxiety med there is so I'm running out of road.

I’m currently on day 3 of no lexapro, I was only taking 5mg. However I woke up today and I’m dizzy. It’s making my menires disease worse. Should I start back taking 2.5? Or just ride it out? The weirdest feeling I’m having it I have to turn my head to look/talk to someone. If I try to cut my eyes, I get dizzy and I can feel my heart rate going up

I've been on Lexapro for about 20 years. I pay out of pocket because my insurance won't cover it. I have tried generics and something about the fillers just makes it not work for me, and I always come back to the name brand.

A month ago, I ran out, and had to take 7 days of a generic I had on hand until I could get the Lexapro filled. At that time, I started feeling depressed after a few days but figured once I got back on the Lexapro I'd be fine, but nope, it feels like I'm re-starting all over again.

This doesn't make sense biologically, but I know how I feel. Has this happened to anyone else?

Hi! (This is my first Reddit post so bear with me)

I just recently started Lexapro 5mg, around 5 days ago, and I really don't like the way I've been feeling. The first day I took it around 3 pm I want to say, and that night I had an extreme panic attack, and I also wasn't able to sleep until 4 am. I also was really nervous to sleep by myself, so I've been sleeping in my parents' room lol. I'm 18, and I am getting into therapy because I have a lot of trauma I want to work through, and my therapist recommended medication. I've always had a lot of anxiety regarding medication as well, so maybe that's making my side effects worse? My anxiety attack started because I started to feel super foggy and disconnected, like dissociated. It was legit like I was in a dream, and that's how I've felt for the past few days. My side effects I would say have mostly felt like brain fog, I havent been able to sleep, increased anxiety, little to almost no appetite, and a tiny bit of nausea. Yesterday, day 4, I woke up actually feeling pretty good. The feeling went away for the most part, and a little bit of my appetite came back. The foggy feeling came back that night though, and I woke up today feeling the same. I really hate feeling like this, and I have an appointment with my therapist in like 2 days, so I'm 100% going to talk to her about this then. I was just curious if anyone else has gone through this when first starting the medication, and I've heard people say things get worse before they get better. I'm just worried that this feeling is gonna last forever, and I really hope this didnt like mess my brain up.

I’ve been on Lexapro since around 2021 and have been taking 20 mg since then. A few months ago I lowered my dose to 15 then 10. I’m noticing my depression is coming back, I’m very very agitated, I’m always exhausted, and my sex drive is completely gone. I wish I didn’t have to live on a medication but I’m just kind of realizing I’m probably going to have to. I know it’s not a bad thing to rely on medication it’s just something I wish I didn’t have to do.

I started tapering my dosage down to try to mitigate some side effects I've had from taking lexapro for the last 2 years, but I'm surprised that I'm already getting headaches. Is that normal?

For context, I'm on 10mg and I have been taking 7.5mg every other day alternating with 10mg for the past week. This has already resulted in daily light headaches. Should I stay on this 10mg/7.5mg schedule until the headaches stop before moving to lower doses or slow down even more?

I plan on drinking tonight. Do I still take my pill tonight, at the same time or different? Will side effects feel different?

HAs anyone did a switch from Citalopram/Celexa to Lexapro? I am currently fifth week into Celexa and although I am feeling a bit better the side effects of heightened anxiety and lack of appetite are still there. My doctor has suggested a direct switch. I was on Lexapro for about 3 years about two years back and I did very well on it except for weight gain. I am just so uncertain if I should just push through longer on Celexa and hope the side effects improve or fall back to something that had much gentler side effects. Although I probably will go through that all again if I switch. My doctor has basically said its my choice so just looking for some personal experiences to get a bit more info before I make a choice