Hiya,

I briefly had a topic on Surviving Antidepressants and thought I would share progress on here.

I am not currently asking for any advice as it causes me to go down a loop which has put me off posting so far. I’ll ask for advice if and when I need it, I hope thats okay.

All is going well so far. Four reductions in and only symptoms have been minor headaches and some sleep fragmentation.

Previous insomnia (beyond my initial August 2025 incident) has been identified as panic-attack induced and usually I can now overcome one night of poor sleep with calming techniques.

I plan to pop in now and again to provide updates, and potentially ask for help/advice if it is needed.

In case anyone is interested, my current protocol is making a 1mg/1ml dilution of my 40mg/1ml Citalopram and making five days of doses at once.

Hi @mooseroo

Welcome to the forum!

 

This is a volunteer-run, community forum aimed at helping those who are tapering and/or experiencing difficulties with psychiatric medications and withdrawl syndrome. We are not medical professionals and cannot offer medical advice. We simply offer support and opinions which you could use as talking points with a medical provider knowledgeable in withdrawing off psychiatric medications.

 

Please familiarise yourself with the forum rules and the disclaimer located here: Guidelines

 

Please make sure your signature is kept up to date with your drug history. This will allow members to see some basic information about your drug history and situation so that they may help you best. Information on how to do this is located in the FAQs section above, but here is a direct link: Update Signature

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51 minutes ago, mooseroo said:

I briefly had a topic on Surviving Antidepressants and thought I would share progress on here.

I am not currently asking for any advice as it causes me to go down a loop which has put me off posting so far. I’ll ask for advice if and when I need it, I hope thats okay.

Good to have you here.

51 minutes ago, mooseroo said:

ll is going well so far. Four reductions in and only symptoms have been minor headaches and some sleep fragmentation.

Pleased to read :)

52 minutes ago, mooseroo said:

I plan to pop in now and again to provide updates, and potentially ask for help/advice if it is needed.

That would be great thanks!

52 minutes ago, mooseroo said:

n case anyone is interested, my current protocol is making a 1mg/1ml dilution of my 40mg/1ml Citalopram and making five days of doses at once.

Good to know.

 

In the mean time this is what I would do if I were you:

 

-Stay Hydrated 

 

-Eat a good clean whole food diet, avoiding processed foods and sugars.

 

-Stay away from caffeine, alcohol and antihistamines and any other psychoactive substances.

 

Supplements are to be avoided initially, as they often irritate our nervous systems. Try to get your nutrition through food.

 

Down the line, you may wish to introduce Fish Oil and Magnesium. Those who can tolerate them have found them calming to the nervous system. Be careful try one at a time and start low and see how you get on should you choose to try them.

 

A daily walk is very important as much as you can manage, if you can manage it. Gets you your fresh air and Vitamin D does wonders for your mind!

 

You are very welcome here and I hope you find the site supportive.

Chippy

Hiya!

Offering a quick update. I tapered 15% to 2.79mg liquid three weeks ago.

Had no symptoms at all until I suddenly had three nights of insomnia in the middle of week 2. This luckily passed with the help of some Nytol.

I was due to taper again today but am holding until Thursday due to some key work events this week. I feel 100% now so despite the insomnia I think I am okay to taper again?

Hope everyone is doing okay.

Mooseroo :)

19 hours ago, mooseroo said:

Hiya!

Offering a quick update. I tapered 15% to 2.79mg liquid three weeks ago.

Had no symptoms at all until I suddenly had three nights of insomnia in the middle of week 2. This luckily passed with the help of some Nytol.

I was due to taper again today but am holding until Thursday due to some key work events this week. I feel 100% now so despite the insomnia I think I am okay to taper again?

Hope everyone is doing okay.

Mooseroo :)

Hi!

Thanks for checking in. It is great your taper is going well. 15% is generally considered too much especially the lower you go. Please consider slowing your taper down. It may be going well at the moment but as you get lower and lower it is likely you will benefit from reducing more slowly.

We would normally suggest tapering a max of 10% per month of your last dose. Symptoms can stack and be delayed in onset. Perhaps consider holding for a while to check you are nice and stable before continuing at a slower rate. Slow is the new fast. It is much easier to go slower than than it is to try to unpick things after they start to go wrong.

Tapering Information

Awesome, thank you!

I was going to do a 15% drop again today but gone for 10% instead bringing me to 2.57mg of liquid :)

21 hours ago, mooseroo said:

Awesome, thank you!

I was going to do a 15% drop again today but gone for 10% instead bringing me to 2.57mg of liquid :)

Hope it goes well :) You are doing great!

Hi all!

Thank you for the recommendation to only taper 10%, I can feel a positive difference :)

For my next taper due in a week and a bit I need some help. My current regime is this:

19.5ml of water + 0.5ml of Citalopram (40mg per 1ml) = 1mg/1ml dilution.

This has worked great as so far my doses have been to two decimal points (e.g 2.79mg) which I have been able to measure with my 1ml syringe that is split into 0.01 ml increments.

My issue is that in a couple of doses time my due dose is 2.036.

Now, do I keep doing what I am doing and measure to the second decimal point and make the dose 2.03? This would probably be fine that time, but as we move further down all the doses are measured to 3 decimal places in my taper app.

Do I need to make a different starting dilution? And if so, any suggestions for what and how?

ALSO, my dose today is 50% of my reinstatement dose of 5mg :))! So proud!

Edited August 13Aug 13 by mooseroo

@mooseroo I don't know if you've been having extreme side effects but you should probably pause your taper for a bit let your body recalibrate. (imo the body doesn't recover as fast even with tiny changes, no change is better than a small change for stabilization).

Sometimes even if you don't have severe symptoms, your body needs time to reconsolidate as tapering is really rough on the body in ways that can be difficult to percieve. It's best to be safe rather than sorry (speaking from experience).

The nervous system gets rocked by anything and everything and especially when vunerable from a taper. So if you are having a heavy work day or wtv taking a break will help. I've been in the position where I was dealing with hectic stuff while tapering which made me less concious of my symptoms but also aggrivated my symptoms as well.

I am not from England but from the US but is there no brand of liquid citalopram that isn't 40mg/1ml? I take a 10mg/5ml solution that I dilute into a 1:1 ratio. I feel like finding another ratio could help you be more exact at smaller amounts (but liquid is pretty easy anyways).

Besides that I hope you are doing well.

15 hours ago, mooseroo said:

Thank you for the recommendation to only taper 10%, I can feel a positive difference :)

Pleasure glad it helped.

15 hours ago, mooseroo said:

For my next taper due in a week and a bit I need some help. My current regime is this:

19.5ml of water + 0.5ml of Citalopram (40mg per 1ml) = 1mg/1ml dilution.

This has worked great as so far my doses have been to two decimal points (e.g 2.79mg) which I have been able to measure with my 1ml syringe that is split into 0.01 ml increments.

My issue is that in a couple of doses time my due dose is 2.036.

Now, do I keep doing what I am doing and measure to the second decimal point and make the dose 2.03? This would probably be fine that time, but as we move further down all the doses are measured to 3 decimal places in my taper app.

Do I need to make a different starting dilution? And if so, any suggestions for what and how?

I would make up a different dilution. You can do whatever strength works out for you numbers wise.

1:2 (0.5mg/mL) (techincally 1:2000) is common so that might give you the accuracy you are looking for but if it does not just dilute further. We can help you if you get stuck with this.

We have a calulator that might help you play with different dilutions, perhaps take a look at that, any questions let me know.

https://antidepressantrecovery.org/topic/279-cutting-calculator-20/#comment-5881

15 hours ago, mooseroo said:

ALSO, my dose today is 50% of my reinstatement dose of 5mg :))! So proud!

So happy for you :)

10 hours ago, yoshi4844 said:

@mooseroo I don't know if you've been having extreme side effects but you should probably pause your taper for a bit let your body recalibrate. (imo the body doesn't recover as fast even with tiny changes, no change is better than a small change for stabilization).

Sometimes even if you don't have severe symptoms, your body needs time to reconsolidate as tapering is really rough on the body in ways that can be difficult to percieve. It's best to be safe rather than sorry (speaking from experience).

The nervous system gets rocked by anything and everything and especially when vunerable from a taper. So if you are having a heavy work day or wtv taking a break will help. I've been in the position where I was dealing with hectic stuff while tapering which made me less concious of my symptoms but also aggrivated my symptoms as well.

I am not from England but from the US but is there no brand of liquid citalopram that isn't 40mg/1ml? I take a 10mg/5ml solution that I dilute into a 1:1 ratio. I feel like finding another ratio could help you be more exact at smaller amounts (but liquid is pretty easy anyways).

Besides that I hope you are doing well.

Hi Yoshi,

I haven’t had any side effects from my recent tapers. I monitor daily using an app but all has been fine and I am happy managing the taper speed myself in accordance with that and fitting it around my life :)

I am simply looking for some advice on how to dilute to a smaller level. Unfortunately liquid citalopram is only produced in the UK in 40mg/1ml (such a pain!)

2 minutes ago, Chippy said:

Pleasure glad it helped.

I would make up a different dilution. You can do whatever strength works out for you numbers wise.

1:2 (0.5mg/mL) (techincally 1:2000) is common so that might give you the accuracy you are looking for but if it does not just dilute further. We can help you if you get stuck with this.

We have a calulator that might help you play with different dilutions, perhaps take a look at that, any questions let me know.

https://antidepressantrecovery.org/topic/279-cutting-calculator-20/#comment-5881

So happy for you :)

Amazing, thanks! I’ll take a look at the calculator :)