[outofthebag]

Doc gave me Lexipro last Thursday March 20th - I took a 5mg pill that night at 11 p.m. Just as I woke at 6 a.m. I felt my body was an earthquake - wide awake, my left arm was swinging wildly, unstobbably in the air as I babbled to myself in a high-pitched voice that I was crazy. I did not feel I was the person who I am - ths first time this has ever happened. I took the pill with no other medication or sleep aids. The tremors and hallucinations lasted maybe 15 minutes - 25 minutes. Then the mental frightmare sudsided and the physical began; my head felt heavy like a drooping peony while from the neck down my body was weirdly energized, yet that isn't the right word, because when I tried to do anything I had no energy. Luckily it was Good Friday and I had the day off from work - I never would have gotten there. Headache, nausea, leg cramps set in. I lay on the couch all day in a heavy daze. Doc called me back and said "I've never heard of that" - meaning my experience - it was pretty dismissive and she told me to keep taking it - 5 mg. thru the week-end since "I didn't have to go to work" - 24 hrs later Friday night at 11 I was still nauseous and exhausted so why would I want to add to this discomfort? I didn't take the pill and thought I'd get a good night's sleep and feel refreshed in the morning. I woke up still in a daze, not myself, this time with a headache in the back of my head presumably from clenching my teeth all night. It is only now as I am writing this Saturday afternoon that I feel my strengthand full mental focus coming back. This after breaking a 10 mg. Lexipro pill in two and swallowing half of it on Thursday night! iI've gone to Web sites about Lexipro and saw that I was not alone in having a bad reaction - in fact a number of people had worse. Though I know many tough it out and in weeks time it turns the trick and kicks in, I felt the mental hallucinations/paranoia/disorientaion and the first physical tremors and seizure-like flailings I had in the morning made it too dangerous for me to continue. To me it was just common sense that something bad mentally or physically could happen to me. I suffer from depression but I'll have to find another way. Others I've known have had good experiences from these medications. In fact for a time in the mid-nineties I did too - though it took awhile to get there. I took Paxil and it took 3 weeks to kick in - I had every symptom in the book from double vision, nausea, diahrrea, headache all at once from the first pill on but I toughed it out because I was working from home at the time and it helped. Then I stopped taking - a year later I decided to try again - same symptoms, sleeplessness, nausea, double vision etc. but with it this time came a light paranoia but enough to make me stop immediately because that sensation was so unpleasant. Then 12 years later my first Lexipro. The mental break I had within six-seven hours of taking this medication I've never experienced in my life - and never want to take the chance of experiencing again. I might try natural, homeopathic remedies and see what happens. Thanks everyone and I know most of you have good experiences but to those that have had similar side effects I had - good-luck and blessings to you.