Conversation: The conversation between human and AI assistant.
[|Human|] Hello, I am a 54 year old female that has been on celexa for10 years. I weaned myself off over a period of months from 40mg down to 5 mg and then stopped. I ve been off celexa completely for a couple months. However, lately I ve been feeling extremely depressed, paranoid and alone. I have things that I need to deal with in the two months to come that are causing a lot of anxiety. I ve begin taking 20 mg of celexa, but am planning on discussing with my doctor about switching to another antidepressants which would be effective without the added wait gain. What is your knowledge on my issue? Thank you!!!
[|AI|]  Hello user, thanks for contacting Chat Doctor for your health related query. You have told that you were on Elena- that is citalopram, an antidepressant of SSRI (serotonin reuptake inhibitors) class. And you were symptom free during all those years and your symptoms reemerged after stopping the medicine. This gives an indication to restart your treatment, and the best choice would be the medicine that you were stable with, which you have already started. I see you are concerned with weight gain, but usually Elena is not associated with much weight gain issues, and rest of the antidepressants are no way better in this regard (weight). Also SSRI would usually take about 4-6 week time to act effectively (even if you were on it for 10 years), so if you were my patient I would have advised you to wait with 20 mg of Elena dosage for a few weeks. But you should definitely discuss these issues with your psychiatrist. Hope I answered your query - any followup queries are welcome - if satisfied please rate the answer