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Hello, I was hoping someone could give me some advice about some severe symptoms I've been experiencing since switching from Lexapro to Prozac and back again. Here is my story: Diagnosed with OCD and depression at 18. Prescribed 60 mg Prozac which I eventually manage to reduce to 30 mg. Continue taking this dose of Prozac for about 20 years. At the end of last year Prozac seems to have lost its effectiveness so I speak to my doctor about switching to Lexapro which I've heard has less side effects. As instructed by my doctor I reduce my Prozac dose to 20 mg for two weeks, wait 5 days without medication, and then start on 10 mg Lexapro. Soon after starting Lexapro I develop some very unpleasant side-effects, most notably heart palpitations and tinnitus. I speak with the doctor who tells me not to be concerned because the side effects are caused by "anxiety". Against my better judgment I continue taking the Lexapro for a total of 25 days. At this point the palpitations are so bad I have to stop taking the Lexapro immediately. I wait two days and then reinstate the Prozac at 40 mg. Things seem to be reasonably okay for about 3 weeks before all hell breaks loose. I wake up in the middle of the night with such extreme palpitations and dizziness that I end up in ER. However, the doctors find nothing wrong with my heart, conclude its anxiety and send me home. Two hellish weeks of palpitation induced insomnia and intermittent akathesia follow. During this time I have a number of medical tests but nothing abnormal shows up in the results. The palpitations are worse when I lie down and though they cause some anxiety I am convinced they are not caused by anxiety. It feels like the part of my nervous system responsible for controlling my heart has been physically damaged in some way. When I try to explain this to my psychiatrist and cardiologist they don't understand. The psychiatrist gives me Valium and the cardiologist gives me a beta blocker. None of these seem to make much difference so I'm given some Ambien to help me sleep. I take the Ambien for about 5 nights before I decide I'd rather deal with the insomnia. Eventually I get some kind of sleep, but it is still very fragmented and the palpitations persist. My chest feels really tight as if my heart is being pushed up against my chest bone and the palpitations are worsened by lying down, eating or feeling cold. I lose my appetite and drop from 78 to 69 kgs in weight. I start filming my sleep so that I can show my doctor what happens. The footage shows me suffering from hypnic jerks and muscle twitching. These jerks are accompanied by electric shock like sensations that wake me up. During the day I am still tortured by this uncomfortable feeling in my chest and the ongoing palpitations. It feels like my heart has a mind of its own and has been knocked out of sync with the rest of my body. The tinnitus (a loud, high-pitched ringing) also continues. After 18 years at the same company I have to take sick leave for the first time. I have been off work for a month now and have no idea when I'll be able to go back. I continue to take 30 mg Prozac because I feel things would be even worse without it. During the day I walk because this seems to help with the palpitations. I've started taking Magnesium L Threonate and krill oil supplements. I desperately want my life back.

Hello, everyone 👋 I'm Bogdan from Romania. I'm here because I've been struggling with constant heart palpitations after getting off of Cipralex (escitalopram) 20mg, which I was taking for 1.5 years for social anxiety (panic attacks at work). The doctor recommended the "slow tapper" strategy of 25% every 2 months (which I've now found is not slow at all). I've been off of it since 8th of June 2021, but have since had constant heart palpitations, dizziness at times and maybe somewhat bad memory. My only real problem now is the constant heart palpitations, which by the way, I've never had before. This is one thing that's very depressing to me, because I took Cipralex for social anxiety (panic attacks at work) and ended up with these heart palpitations which I never ever had, after getting off of the medication. The first few weeks I had some really bad heart palpitations, every single day, at times I had to just go and lay in bed, I couldn't work or do anything. After a few weeks they went completely away, then they came back again for 1-2 weeks, then they went away again, after the first 3-4 months they went away completely again and I believed that was it, I got rid of them for good. I had no problems for multiple months and then, somewhere at the beginning of March this year (2022), around the same time I got Covid, they came back. Since then they never went away again. It's been 3 months of heart palpitations, the first 2 months I had them every single day again, and afterwards I did have some very easy days, almost no palpitations, but not more than 2-3 days in a row (I believe only once it went more than that, for a week). They intensity and frequency of the palpitations has decreased, I would say maybe they are at 60-70% of what they where in the beginning, but still enough to make me not enjoy life anymore, make me cry at times and make me more depressed than ever, because now I can't see the end of it and I don't know what to do. Needless to say I went to cardiologists and had all tests done (endoscopy, EKG, plus I had EKG holter on me for 24 hours) and the palpitations are indeed recorded, but there's nothing wrong with my heart, the doctor even went to suggested it could be from Covid, but I had them long before I got Covid and right after getting off the medication, which is very clear to me. Otherwise I'm having the best period of my life, which I find ironic, because I had some really rough times growing up and now when I got everything together, got married in January and are content with my life and have good family/friends relationships at last, now I got these palpitations which make me not able to enjoy life. I went back to my doctor last year, after the first 3 months off of the medication and he recommended going back on the last dose of Cipralex that I was stable on, that is 5mg, but then my heart palpitations disappeared and I decided not to, I didn't feel good about going back either, I felt like I've suffered too much for 3 months to go back on it. Now I'm here, I am 1 year off of it and feel like I've suffered even more than enough to go back on it now, but I'm losing hope at this point and wonder if I shouldn't just go back on this 5mg dose for a while and tapper even slower from there, because this seems never ending. Did anyone experienced the same with Cipralex/Lexapro (escitalopram) and can give me an advice what should I do? Should I go back on the dose I was stable on (5mg) after 1 year not taking anything, or it's too late now and I should just try to be patient and wait for the heart palpitations to go away, is there any hope for them to go away even? I'd greatly appreciate your advice, as I'm troubled and a bit hopeless at the moment. Thank you for reading, God bless.