What is citalopram?

Question

What dose it treat??

Side effects and 2 reviews..

im taking an exam i know nothing about this....

HELP????

Answer 1

citalopram is used as a psychotropic for anxiety disorders, depression, and something to do with pregnancy. Go to wikipedia and look up citalopram, and good luck on your exam.

Answer 2

It is one of the SSRI antidepressants.  It can work well but takes on average 14 days to have any effect.  It doesnt work for everyone though.  It is basically a mood enhancer to put it simply .  Ciprolex or Escatilipram is the better drug - citalopram is a rougher model of the same drug. x*x

Side effects are often - VERY runny tummy, sleeplessness, dry mouth.

Answer 3

Alcohol related depression,I was prescribed it a few years ago and it's supposed to block a desire for alcohol!

Answer 4

It is an antidepressant. Not just for alcohol related problems,

Answer 5

Just a quick note that could be important....

Starlet rightly said that cipralex is the trade name for escitalopram, and that this is a more recent form of citalopram.

The difference is important however.

Firstly, I'm not sure if escitalopram is any better. I haven't read up on any trials etc.  Usually what happens in this industry, and which I suspect happened with citalopram, is that the drug company's copyright to a drug it's made and marketed runs out after 10 years or so.  When this happens, competitors can make generic forms of the drug and sell it at a fraction of the cost (because it costs on avg, $100m for a drug company to make a drug, do all the trials etc and get it on the market, so they can't afford to reduce the high cost of their drugs even after 10 years because they have a lot of invested money to recoup.) So what they do is they alter the old drug in a way that allows them to patent it again and have sole copyright ownership once again.  

Citalopram is a 50/50 racemic mix of two enantiomer compounds. Basically, this means that the drug exists in two forms, both essentially identical in all respects, except one is the mirror image of the other.  However, the body can detect these differences and it is usually the case that only one of the enantiomers causes the intended effect, whilst the other is useless (best case scenario).  Sadly there have been examples of when the useless compound is actually having effects of its own, often times rather harmful effects (e.g. thalidomide).

With citalopram the unused enantiomer was just broken down and excreted, without any real side-effects. This is perfectly fine. But why have it at all? Well it requires a lot of effort and money and time to remove the unwanted enantiomer from these mixtures, so provided it is not harmful then there's no need to do so...until the copyright lapsed.

So what the drug company did, was to go the extra mile and purify out the unwanted enantiomer compound and make a tablet that was essentially just the wanted enantiomer that acts as the antidepressant.  Extra-cost, but it means they have a new drug to sell that didnt require all the research and design that the old one did.

The point here is that citalopram is not cipralex. I have seen this mistake be made on prescriptions before. If you are on 10 mg of cipralex (escitalopram) and your doctor prescribes 10 mg citalopram...then you are actually getting a tablet containing 5 mg of cipralex (the useful enantiomer) and 5 mg of filler compound (the useless enantiomer).  Someone mentioned this in an earlier answer and if you are still on cipralex but getting prescribed citalopram then mention this to your doctor.

Best Wishes

Answer 6

mine was for depression and anxiety.. thats why i was given it. it also seemed to help my psychomotor retardation. lovely name i know. ciprolex is just another form of the word citalopram the doctors used to say- you are on ciprolex? yes... and then off i would go with a prescription with citalopram hydrobomide... so i assumed they were one in the same.. or i had some quack doctors...

Answer 7

Citalopram is an antidepressant drug used to treat depression associated with mood disorders. It is also used on occasion in the treatment of body dysmorphic disorder and anxiety.

Citalopram belongs to a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). It is sold under the brand-names Celexa (U.S., Forest Laboratories, Inc.), Cipramil (Australia), Citrol, Seropram,Talam (Europe and Australia), Recital (Israel, Thrima Inc. for Unipharm Ltd.), Zetalo (India), Celepram, Ciazil (Australia), Zentius (South America, Roemmers), Ciprapine (Ireland), Cilift (South Africa) and Cipram (Denmark, H. Lundbeck A/S).

from wiki okay?