Week 4 update

I'm continuing to check in on my progress in case it's helpful for anyone else. I'm switching from Prozac 10mg to Lexapro 5mg after a two-day pause in between. Hoping to treat anxiety and dysthymia.

Week four was very inconsistent for me -- I'd have days of lethargy and brain fog, days that felt like my unmedicated normal, and one fleeting morning of good mood (where nothing seemed inherently wrong with life or looming in dread). The biggest side effect shift seemed to be that my appetite is increasing -- this is a negative for some people, but one of my anxiety symptoms is having no appetite at all and difficulty eating and swallowing, so it's a plus for me. Hoping this coming week could be the one I finally start to see some benefits.

Week 1: 

  • Mild headaches in the mornings of the first couple of days
  • Intermittent sleepiness or restlessness/agitation (more of a refusal to settle down and focus on one thing rather than a need to move)
  • Dry mouth
  • Constipation starting around day 2
  • Anxiety felt a little... different? Not gone but a little bit of a new vibe, like it was more distant and not grabbing onto real-life concerns
  • Sometimes having a bit of trouble remembering a word or picking up a train of thought
  • Vivid dreams! I actually enjoy these though.
  • Notably, I didn't seem to get ANY nausea, and no remarkable insomnia (maybe a bit more trouble drifting off occasionally?)

Week 2:

  • Falling into a pattern of mild depression in mornings (a feeling of bleakness and disinterest in doing anything), and the weird distant anxiety in evenings
  • Lots of sleepiness in the morning, seem to be able to sleep in as long as I let myself
  • Constipation may be improving but I upped my Miralax dose a lot
  • Probably some sexual side effects but hard to tell, as Prozac also caused these for me; I'm ultimately hoping to find a medication that doesn't do this but willing to give this one a while if the med works otherwise, especially since there are reports that this is sometimes temporary for lexapro users
  • Difficulty swallowing has returned along with lack of appetite (these are anxiety symptoms for me), but not as severe as it was pre-prozac; I was kind of expecting this during the transition period since anxiety gets worse before it gets better
  • Vivid dreams remain; occasionally these have been nightmares but still consider this side effect more interesting than bad

Week 3

  • Noticing more sleepiness throughout the day, not sure if it's actually getting worse or I'm just more aware of it because I was more forgiving of it early on and now it's been going on long enough to start to have impacts on my life functioning; on some days I haven't wanted to get up in the morning and then have started thinking about going to bed in the late afternoon
  • Still weird/vivid dreams; I think I'm also waking up a bit more frequently in the night but without trouble getting back to sleep
  • Anxiety seems in the 'normal' range for me, which is higher than I want it to be but not necessarily heightened any additional amount by the med adjustment
  • Also kind of gloomy and demotivated which seems to go hand in hand with the sleepiness
  • Maybe some trouble concentrating
  • Sexual side effects continuing
  • Constipation seems to be gone
  • Low appetite but less difficulty with eating and swallowing

Week 4

  • Some very sleepy, brainfoggy days, others where I felt more normal
  • Mood was still mostly in the range where I would expect it to be when unmedicated
  • Sexual side effects continuing
  • Appetite was high
  • Lots of vivid dreams
  • More insomnia (trouble falling asleep, waking up during the night) but still not enough to be a dealbreaker