AboutDr Alan Galbraith Expertise I can answer most questions on drugs, both medical and "recreational". Answers can be given in either technical or layperson terminology. My main areas of interest are psychiatric, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular drugs.
Experience I have been a university lecturer/head of department for almost thirty years, but am now retired. My research interests were alcohol, smoking and cardiovascular disease.
Organizations Institute of Biology, London.
Publications Author of "Fundamentals of Pharmacology" 5th Edition published in November 2007 by Pearson Education, Australia.
I was on 20 mg of Celexa for 2 weeks, then the Dr changed me to 10 mg Lexapro, The Lexapro gave me a skin rash of red dry patches so I asked to change back.. The Dr said not to bother b/c they are the same medication only made by different companies... well I went someplace else and went back on 20 mg Celexa and was fine again.
when I asked at the Pharmacy, the man told me, they are the same medication but the patent ran out on Celexa so another company started making Lexapro
with a different filler in it.
Just what is the story between these 2 meds?
Can you tell me if there is a difference between Celexa and Lexapro?
and if the difference is just a filler .. what the heck is it so I can avoid getting more itchy red spots in the future.
Thanks so much for your time.
~Dawn
Answer Dear Dawn
An excellent and important question (in my opinion). Lexapro is escitalopram and Celexa is citalopram and as you see from these generic names they are similar but not the same. The easiest way too differentiate between them both and the way I tell students is to think of citalopram being the same as a box of both right and left hand gloves. You can easily sort them out into their correct category but try to describe the difference between the left handed ones and the right handed one in words. Not an easy task. Escitalopram is the right-handed glove but citalopram is both the left and right-handed one. The body can tell the difference and it is said by some that the escitalopram is better than the citalopram but many hotly dispute this. They cannot be considered to be the same; this is wrong never mind about the excipients (fillers).
The same manufacturer makes them both (Lundbeck) and I am giving you the manufacturers short list of adverse effects and you can see even they are not identical.
Both can cause an allergic rash but this is not common and it seems you will be more allergic to the escitalopram than the citalopram. I really think your pharmacist and prescriber should be more knowledgeable about these drugs as both gave you wrong information. My advice would be to go back to the Celexa and inform your prescriber of your knew knowledge which is better than theirs'.
