increasing lexapro for increased anxiety?

[confused]

I have been having waves of anxiety of the past few days. I contacted my pdoc today. He said to try increasing my lexapro from 10 to 15mg until I see him on Nov 4. It does help me with anxiety now.

Will it take awhile for the increase to work? I told him I would do this and try to ride it out.

I see a tdoc on Friday.

[mikl_pls]

I could be wrong, but I think increases in doses take less time to work than if you were starting an antidepressant for the first time (with your receptors not downregulated or anything from chronic antidepressant administration). So where one might say to wait 4-6 weeks for an antidepressant to kick in when you're first starting it, my guess would be anywhere from 1-3 weeks, maybe even less. I've felt a difference from a dose increase in antidepressants in as little as two days.

I hope your anxiety is quelled soon! Good luck!

[JustNuts]

The time for a dose increase to take effect is extremely difficult to estimate as it relies both on drug pharmacokinetics and on a lot of different processes happening in your brain (such as upregulation/downregulation of various receptors/neurotransmitters/genes/etc), as well as on your individual genetics and any relevant drug interactions. Honestly it's mostly a roll of the dice, it could be immediate, it could be a week, it could be three months - nobody really knows. Noticeable effects are possibly more likely to occur during the serum steady state readjustment process (and side effects are definitely more likely to (re)occur during this time period, especially initially), but there's too many other factors at play for it to be this simple.

[confused]

Thanks, I am sleeping the weekend away. That is one side effect. But, something changed. the anxiety isn't as often and more manageable.