Patient/caregiver was educated on precautions to be exercised while taking citalopram as follows:
- Citalopram use can sometimes increase the risk for deterioration and worsening of clinical symptoms of mood disorders. Continue taking citalopram, as recommended, even if your mood feels better. Discontinuing the medication abruptly, without your physician’s recommendation, can result in disruption of chemical balance in the brain, resulting in worsening of mood disorder and severe withdrawal symptoms. During withdrawal, individuals can present with complaints such as, feeling low, anxiety, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, gross appetite changes, impulsiveness, agitation, aggression, hallucinations, mania, and suicidal thoughts. Report any deterioration of symptoms of mood disorder and withdrawal symptoms immediately to your physician, so that, a dose change or change in plan of care could be considered.
- As the balance between the chemicals in the brain has to be finely regulated to help relieve the anxiety and depressive symptoms and experience feelings of well-being, the dose of citalopram also needs to be finely regulated, in order to accomplish this goal. Your physician could change the dose of citalopram, based on the response and side-effects developed. Maintain compliance with follow-up physician appointments and be accommodative to the plan of dose changes, until you show an optimum response.
- Observe compliance with all physician visits and periodical lab draws ordered, while taking citalopram. This helps to timely notify your doctor on improvement/deterioration with symptoms of mood disorder and side-effects developed. This will also allow your physician to make appropriate changes to plan of care and dose of citalopram, as needed.
- Citalopram use in expectant mothers could harm the unborn baby and result in birth defects. So, citalopram should be cautiously used or avoided for an alternative drug during pregnancy and in women planning for pregnancy. Women in the child-bearing age group, taking citalopram on a regular basis, must employ effective contraceptive measures in order to avoid getting pregnant.
