Has anyone had succes on 5mg of fluoxetine

[Kimmas]

I have been taking fluoxetine for about a month now. I started at 10mg to treat anxiety with depression. I had to go down to 5mg because the anxiety was really bad and I couldn't sleep or concentrate. After almost 2 weeks I went back to try the 10mg and now 5 days later the anxiety is back full speed ahead and I feel terrible.
I am wondering if maybe 5 mg is all I will need along with the lorazapam that I take to cover the anxious times or am I just wasting my time with this med all together.

Kimmas

[stallion_king]

guys .. the amount of mg is decided by the doctor based on your level of anxiety ... the standard is 10 mg and 20 mg.. yes fluoxetine takes 1 to 2 weeks to take effect .. it is very good medicine to control the anxiety ... the drawback is sometime you may experience tremors in various parts of body, confusion, etc etc... no need to worry .. just think that to get cure you are taking these medicines and these are the side effects that i can bear... no problem.... i took this for 2 months and after that i stopped. believe me there were no side effects or withdrawal symptoms..... the reason is because the half life of this drug is more aprox 4 to 1 week so it will not show any withdrawal symptoms.... try to practice meditation and exercise... and relax...

[Ohcomeon22]

Ugh don't listen to these people. Talk to your doctor immediately. Tremors aren't normal and can indicate serotonin syndrome, which is very dangerous.

[Paxiled]

Again, old post, and in case anyone is reading this serotonin syndrome is very rare.  It's most likely to occur on high doses or when mixing more than one med that affects serotonin together, which is sometimes done by docs but can be dangerous.  But on such a low dose it's really unlikely to be the problem here.  But yes, definitely, always try to get your doc to listen and do report side effects.  

[suz1954]

i had the same problem with even 10 mg a day of flouxetine. in just 2 weeks, i had tremors, confusion and immense fearful, agitated side effects that my doctor lowered my dose to 5 mg a day.

half life of flouxetine, i learned, in our systems is 4-6 days. that is long! no wonder, i felt like being overdosed on 10 mg alone.

perhaps, dosing depends on every person's severity of condition. but for me, 5 mg is what is tolerable.

[617pg]

You have to wait a while for SSRI's to work. Most people say it can take as long as two months to start working, and in those two months side effects such as agitation and loss of sleep are not uncommon as your brain adjusts to it. I cannot imagine 5mg doing much because I am on 20 mg and now that I have been taking it for some time I can't say I notice much difference, however I am not a doctor so can only speculate on whether such a low dose would work for you- especially since these things can affect different people very differently. My advice is to give it a couple of months to work before making any major decisions.

[Ohcomeon22]

Talk to your doctor immediately about your side effects, don't wait. Geez.

[Paxiled]

In cast you're new here, this post is really really old.  Unlikely these folks are still around.  And while you should report side effects to your psychiatrist, it's not always easy to just do that or to get a good answer.  It's also true it does take time for a drug to work but side effects start right away and often do in fact go away as the drug kicks in.  The concern is how intolerable the side effects are, how much you need a med to work, etc.  So yeah, but sometimes you do need to wait.  If you want to make new posts more folks are likely to see them than these really old ones, but some of us like me will see it.