celexa?

[sarasquirrel]

so i went to the doc today for a follow up. ive been taking 5 mg of lexapro for almost 4 weeks. i ran out sunday and missed mon and tues doses.

my insurance wont cover lexapro. so she gave me more samples of it and that will last a while, and she wrote me a script for celexa instead.

so has anyone here used celexa? i understand its like the parent of lexapro

[r2cagle]

Why won't your insurance cover lexapro, is it too new? Will they cover celexa?

And no, haven't taken celexa.

[Der Cute]

I've taken celexa, it is old enough to come in a generic form now.

[Soulstealer]

I'm currently on it right now. It's similar to zoloft and lexapro which I've taken in the past. The doctor prescribed me the generic so it was cheap and since it's a similar class of drug I knew what to expect symptom wise and all.

[Plaidman]

Think of it as this.


CELEXA is made! YAY!

Oh wait, our patent is ran out. Hm. How to make more money off this...

CELEXA - Remove unneeded chemicals in it

Birth:
LEXAPRO! Yay! Rebirth of Celexa, at half cost, and we gain a new patent! YAY!


It is the same thing. Just a clone, but cheaper despite it having more parts to it.

[BookstoreEscapee]

What Plaid said. From what I read (when I got my script for Lexapro, which I never filled), Lexapro is a more refined version of the same chemical that's in Celexa. It works the same and most likely you will not know the difference, but the book I read said that Lexapro may have fewer side effects. If you do notice more side effects on Celexa and they don't get better in a few weeks, tell your doctor. If they can make a case for why you need a specific name brand drug, your insurance might make an exception.

[DrFaroohk]

I was on celexa for a while. Worked wonders. Made my stomach hurt like hell for the first week or so, though. Just a random side effect I guess.

Anyway, my whole family pretty much takes celexa. We've all got the "don't dare stress me out!" kind of emotional problems, and if anything doesn't go according to plan we freak. Makes my mom and bro almost normal, made me almost normal, and I'm way off the reservation.

[sarasquirrel]

well i got about little over a months worth of lexapro.

the doc said that if celexa doesnt work then she would tell the insurance company and then they would have to cover it. still stupid. just cover it lol

[Caffienated_Caramel]

I've taken celexa before. It did work but omg, the first week or two I was so nauseous!

[Solumina]

Yeah stomach issues tend to be a bit of an issue with Celexa and yes it is essentially the same thing as Lexapro but not as fine tuned. It takes longer to kick in (but if you are already on Lexapro then that shouldn't be an issue) and it has more potential for side effects but it works the same way. The reason why insurance wont just outright cover Lexapro is most likely that there isn't a generic and because even non-generic Celexa is cheaper while doing the same thing so it makes sense to require you to at least try it, this is also why having your doc tell them that you tried Celexa but need Lexapro will get them to cover it. This is something that many insurance companies now do since it saves them a lot of money.

[Shalom]

Lexapro is basically the left-handed optical isomer of Celexa, which is the racemic mixture, meaning it contains equal amounts of both the right-handed and left-handed varieties.

The claimed advantage to this is that the side effects depend on the total dose of both isomers, whereas the desired effect is supposedly caused by only one of them. By isolating that particular isomer and packaging it separately, they can halve the amount of mg, thus reducing side effects, while keeping the same amount of effect. Similar pairs include Prilosec/Nexium, Claritin/Clarinex, Zyrtec/Xyzal, Ritalin/Focalin, etc.

Of course, as for the real advantage, Plaidman nailed it. It's all about revenue enhancement. I see this happening all the time with new medications; it's become so blatant it's almost funny (the expression is "like a kitten trying to cover up on a tile floor", or like Baghdad Bob talking about winning the war whilst bombs are dropping all around him). Look at Paxil, another drug in this class. Paxil is taken once daily, like all the SSRIs. So when the patent expired, they came out with a sustained release version, Paxil CR, which can be taken . . . once daily. Some improvement, right? We used to joke that CR stood for Continued Revenue...

Another case was that of Zovirax, commonly used for herpes-type viral diseases like cold sores or chickenpox. For seventeen years, the manufacturer boasted that it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then the patent expired, and generic acyclovir came out. Suddenly that drug was no good, and we should all be dispensing their new drug Valtrex instead. The cynic in me wonders when exactly Valtrex was perfected, and how long they kept this supposedly much-improved version on the shelf to squeeze the last bit profit out of the older drug, given that the new one came out within weeks of the generic's availability.

(I tried Celexa for 4 days once. By the end of the fourth day, I was so drowsy that I was afraid to get behind the wheel of a car. Your mileage may vary, as it's as likely to cause insomnia as somnolence, depending on the individual taking it.)

[BookstoreEscapee]

Of course, as for the real advantage, Plaidman nailed it. It's all about revenue enhancement. I see this happening all the time with new medications; it's become so blatant it's almost funny (the expression is "like a kitten trying to cover up on a tile floor", or like Baghdad Bob talking about winning the war whilst bombs are dropping all around him). Look at Paxil, another drug in this class. Paxil is taken once daily, like all the SSRIs. So when the patent expired, they came out with a sustained release version, Paxil CR, which can be taken . . . once daily. Some improvement, right? We used to joke that CR stood for Continued Revenue...

I took Effexor for 6 years (been off for a year this month. Woo!). Last year or so, I started seeing commercials for Pristiq. One day I happened to be paying more attention than normal to such commercials, and I noticed the actual drug name - desvenlafaxine.

Effexor's real name? Venlafaxine. (Regular Effexor is available as a generic, but not the extended release version that I was taking.)

Hmm...

[Shalom]

Effexor's real name? Venlafaxine. (Regular Effexor is available as a generic, but not the extended release version that I was taking.)

Actually that just came out today, as it happens.

[Flying Grype]

*bows to Shalom* We're not worthy! Thank you for explaining the chemical difference.

I'm on citalopram, which is Celexa, but I've always taken a generic. A doctor once suggested to me that if I started having problems with the citalopram (e.g. side effects) she'd put me on escitalopram (Lexapro) instead. I've never had problems, though.

[bean]

I've done my share of SSRI's. Zoloft made me a zombie, Lexapro was expensive and had pretty nasty withdrawals (brain zaps anyone?), Prozac made me stare at walls.

Been on Celexa a couple of years now, it works good and it's dirt cheap.