Lexapro brain fog?

[gornza]

I have just started taking 5mg of Lexapro at night (my psychiatrist prescribed it for ocd and depression).  Even though it's a low dose I am experiencing "Brain Fog", like my thinking capabilities are not 100% but like 70%.  Im an Uber driver and dont dare want to take a chance driving others in this state.   Has anyone experienced this side effect ?  If you did, how long does it take to go away?

[mikl_pls]

I don't know if this helps any but I figured I'd share my experience with Lexapro for what it's worth.

It's been quite a while since I took Lexapro (I was in high school, 9th and 10th grade, when I took it, and now I'm 29), but I do seem to remember Lexapro causing a sort of brain fog for me too. I was on 10 mg. It also made me very drowsy and I fell asleep in class all the time. I wasn't under the care of a pdoc at the time, just a GP, and I didn't know anything about medicines then, so I didn't know to complain about the side effects, so I never did anything about it. I just dealt with it (along with the psychosis and mania it induced because I wasn't on a mood stabilizer) until I quit taking it several months later... or maybe it was about a year later... I don't really remember that well.

I also seem to remember it causing me to stop caring about anything... like my room went from being neat and organized to a complete and total disaster zone that you could barely walk through, and I just didn't have the fucks in me to give to even remotely consider beginning commencing cleaning anything up in my room. When I went off Lexapro, I seem to remember coming to the realization of what a dumpster fire my room had become and suddenly cleaned my room and didn't stop cleaning until everything was picked up and put away. That was, of course, before my depression got really, really bad, though, as my room is now again a disaster zone.

Anyway, I do hope the Lexapro brain fog clears up for you and that you do well on it for your OCD and depression! Best of luck to you!

Perhaps your pdoc could add a low dose stimulant to your regimen like methylphenidate (Ritalin), dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine), Adderall, or Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine) (but that might exacerbate your OCD). I have OCD and take a stimulant and have no problem with it though, for what that's worth. Another thing that might help would be a stimulating atypical antipsychotic like aripiprazole (Abilify). It could improve the brain fog and help your OCD and depression to boot (there have been studies done with aripiprazole on treating OCD, plus it's approved as an adjunct treatment to antidepressants for MDD).

[jt07]

I've had brain fog with just about every antidepressant I started using. It's a start-up effect and should go away in a couple of weeks or so.