I was on that one for about a year. It did seem to relieve the depression I was dealing with at the time, but in a way that revealed the underlying cause was anxiety.
And it did nothing for the anxiety, possibly made it a little worse because it made me feel altered in a way I was sure other people could see.
I weaned off it very slowly. I get "brain zaps" from very minor discontinuation, so it took for-ever to get off of it. It was better than quitting zoloft, IMO.
Ultimately, my depression was due to anxiety in combination with vitamin and mineral deficiency. Getting my shortages sorted out helped immensely. Now I think I probably feel pretty "normal". I have bad hormonal swings, down days, outright bad days, and a certain amount of good days.
Just having that punctuation is such a help. There ARE good days sometimes, instead of unrelenting horrible days.
My anxiety is from the church and my MORmONic parents. I still need to work on that. But in the meantime I use several herbal remedies. Not what you're thinking, lol! Ethnobotany has a lot to offer.
The doctor prescribed it for me a couple months prior to me resigning. It was interesting that after I resigned my now ex asked me if I would then go off the medication. She recognized that TSCC caused a lot of my problems.
I stopped taking it because of the side affects I had.
The first issue I had was inorgasmia. That wasn’t too bad, as I could get excited for sex, but it would take hours to climax. The side affect that I quit cold turkey because of was I was not able to urinate (started about 4 months after taking the medication). But, as with many antidepressants, the affects are very individualized. The hard part is the affects (good and bad) sometimes require a long time to manifest themselves.
I currently am not on any meds, but have found relief through a healthier lifestyle. Without all the church crap to do, I have found time to get to the gym and become fit.
Celexa did help me decide to leave TSCC. While on it my emotions were stunted to the point that my decision was purely logical. Take out the emotions and it was easy to call BS on the whole church thing.
I've been on 20mg for about a month and a half now for anxiety. So far so good. I had the sexual side effects for about 3 weeks, but seem to be fine now. (Inability/difficulty to achieve orgasm. My sex drive is still decreased, but at least I can finish now.) I have had no issues with anxiety since I started taking it. Doc said it could take up to a month to kick in, but I felt it immediately. There have been numerous instances that would usually incite an anxiety attack, but so far I haven't had any. Aside from that, I am a little more tired than usual and a little more apathetic. I'll take that trade off in exchange for not thinking I'm going to die every day.
I'm on 40 mg. I started it an hour after giving birth to my last baby to try to prevent post-partum depression that I had with my previous baby. I'm am very dependent on it. If I miss more than 3 doses I feel suicidal. I also have anxiety issues so I think it has helped with that alot. I believe it has also helped to kill my sex drive. DH isn't too thrilled.
But overall, I think it works well. I did like Lexapro better but it is way too expensive.