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Misc SSRI Antidepressant 40mg Horrible Experience (still ongoing)

dakarv

Greenlighter
Joined
Dec 9, 2010
Messages
15
Hi, this is my experience of taking 40mg of Citalopram (SSRI antidepressant) , I was wondered if anyone had any experience with this or could offer any advice.

Just a little background about myself. I'm a 21 year old male, average height/build. I've been taking drugs recreationally for a few years now, the only thing I do regularly now is smoke pot and have been doing so for a few years. I did a fair amount of MDMA a few years ago, up to the point where I wasn't getting the euphoria from it (not sure if this might be relevant as this drug works on effecting serotonin uptake). Recently the only other thing I've been taking is tramadol, just 2 occasionally like once a week. Tramadol can interact with ssri's but its supposed to increase risk of seizures or something and I hadn't done any for a good 5 days before doing the SSRI's

Anyway 3 days ago my friend got prescribed 20mg pills of aforementioned drug with the instructed dose of one every day. I'm not suffering from any kind of depression but though it couldn't hurt to see what they were like. I also made the stupid decision to take 2 of them so that the effects wouldn't be vague in any way. I've only tried tramadol and vallium in the past for perscription drug but doing several times the recommended dose was more than fine.

I'd been smoking pot all day with my friend and we tried the pills at 5pm. I hadn't really eaten much at this point. 45 minutes later and I'm about to smoke a bong when the pills kick in, I start rushing quite a lot but I'm in the process of lighting up and go ahead and do so. I think I settled down a bit at this point and we play some computer games, I'm feeling more mashed than usual though. About 20 minutes later the rushing comes back, it's like coming up on MDMA except the buzz is a little bit harsher like the harsh buzz when you mix conflicting drugs together.

I come up so hard that I throw up, exactly the same as when you do far too much MDMA at once but this had only happened to me a couple of times despite the large amounts I've done in the past. Very violent stomach contraction but when It's over I start feeling much better, still buzzing but very controllable and almost comfortable. It doesn't last though and about 10-15m later exactly the same thing happens and I come up far too hard and my stomach goes back into spasms. This happened about 4/5 times, then I wasn't getting quite so high with the rushes and was able to avoid throwing up from this point on as it was getting painful. I wasn't able to smoke any pot after the bong I mentioned as I was so ill.

I spent the rest of the day in a hot room, fully clothed sitting on a couch under a duvet. I couldn't do or concentrate on anything. I was going through hot and cold patches, hot being i'd have to lift my duvet off me a bit but would then get shivery straight away. Sometimes I'd be rushing a lot other times not so much, sometimes it was a pretty warm comfortable buzz other times cold and harsh. I was a complete mess. I would also drift into a very weak sleep occasionally then wake up straight away buzzing.

I managed to sleep many hours later but work up buzzing and ill next morning. In the subsequent days I've been well enough to smoke pot and that seems to counter the effects although 40m later when the pot wares off I start to get rushy and cold again. I'll point out that normally I can stop smoking for a couple of hours without cravings and only start feeling the minor withdrawal effects after many hours

It's now day 4 and it's definitely wearing off but since day 2 its been very slow, I was just wondering if anyone else has any experience with this and when i might be feeling normal again

Thanks for your time


PS: should probably mention my friend's been taking them and has been fine, he did one a day then started doing half, only side effects being yawning/dry mouth and being a bit more mashed when smoking
 
SSRI drugs, esp. high doses in naive people, will definitely stay around for a few days. You should be fine in a week or so.

Don't take SSRIs unless you are doing so under the care of a doctor, and for a good reason.
 
OP, I don't understand why you did this? SSRIs are not recreational, and taking 40mg is just stupid. They are notorious for upsetting your stomach, causing insomnia, and kinds of side effects. That's why when doctors prescribe them, you usually start at a very low dose, say 10mg, and work your way up. Taking large doses like that is totally unhealthy, and has no recreational benefits. You were experiencing all the side effects basically on steroids due to taking such a large dose, and your body not being used to SSRIs. They are absolutely junk therapeutically, and have no recreational value, don't touch them again. Any "high" or positive effects you had can be chalked up to placebo.

Stay safe.
 
Yeah stupid i know :\

I guess I though twice the starting dose would be fine, if my friend was put on 10 to start with which is the norm then I'd have done 20 and been fine, oh well a good lesson to learn :D
 
SSRIs can cause serotonin syndrome in high doses (or doses higher than prescribed). The doses at which they affect you differ from person to person, due to brain chemistry, so it's not easy to guess how much will affect you.

I've been on a number of SSRIs in the past and noticed absolutely no effect, but you on the other hand may be sensitive to them (perhaps because of your past MDMA use - although I've used MDMA and it hasn't really affected my experience with SSRIs).

cyrax99 is right about them not being recreational drugs, they can take months to affect depression when prescribed and have no immediate benefits (unlike benzos, which provide relief from anxiety right away).

If the effects you are experiencing are not placebo, then they are the result of your sensitivity. Maybe avoid smoking pot or doing other drugs until you are no longer feeling the side effects, and keep yourself hydrated so you can flush your system faster?
 


The key to recovering from ANY drug are:

1. Keep hydrated
2. EAT!!
3. Excercise
4. Multi Vitamin
5. Lay off drug's for a couple week's to allow your brain to reboot ;)
 
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