Lexapro Index | Brand and Generic Availability ›
Crazy Meds Comprehensive Lexapro pages

This is our summary of Lexapro. Clicking on a “More…” link will take you to a page with greater detail. The Comprehensive Lexapro pages contain the information from all of the “More…” pages.

1.  Brand & Generic Names; Drug Class

US brand name:	Lexapro
Generic name:	escitalopram oxalate
What is Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate)?	Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate) is in the Antidepressants class of drugs.

More about Lexapro’s generic availability, worldwide trade names, and more

2.  What is Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate) used for

2.1  US FDA approved treatment(s)

Major depressive disorder (MDD) in adults & adolescents. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in adults.

2.2  Popular off-label uses

The entire panic-anxiety spectrum, including: Social anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Also bipolar depression.

More about Lexapro’s approved & off-label uses

3.  When will Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate) start working?

3.1  How long until Lexapro starts working

Lexapro can start working within one week. You should still give it at least three weeks. Unless the side effects hit hard and fast.

3.2  Will Lexapro really work for what I have?

Pretty damn good for MDD. Although the odds of Lexapro working may not be statistically much better than Celexa (citalopram), they both have better chances of working for MDD than all the other SSRIs, and most other antidepressants. I.e. around a 60–75% chance of response (they’ll do something positive) and 50–70% chance of remission (kiss that MDD goodbye, as long as you’re taking your meds).
The odds are similar for GAD.

More about how long until, and how well will Lexapro work; and how Lexapro compares with other drugs

4.  How to take and stop taking Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate)

4.1  How to take Lexapro

10mg once a day, that’s it. We say: Start at 5mg a day, increase only if needed.

4.2  How to stop taking Lexapro

Decrease your dosage by 5mg every week. So if you’re taking 10mg a day, take 5mg for a week, then you can stop. 2.5mg a day if you really need to. If you experience severe SSRI discontinuation syndrome that’s not going away, talk to your doctor about a prescription for flouxetine or Lexapro oral solution for a slow tapering off.

More about taking and discontinuing Lexapro

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5.  Lexapro’s (escitalopram oxalate’s) pros and cons

5.1  Pros

Lexapro works faster than other serotonin-selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Many people who take Lexapro have reported that it has better effects and lower chances for side effects than other SSRIs (especially weight gain), and when side effects do strike most of them tend to be less harsh. Fewer drug-drug interactions than any other SSRI.

5.2  Cons

Few dosage options with the tablets. Some side effects (teeth grinding, TMJ, anorgasmia) can be way worse than with other SSRIs, and those first two can get really painful.

5.3  Interesting stuff your doctor probably didn’t tell you

Lexapro is the only true SSRI. All the others affect one or more other neurotransmitters to some extent, although only enough for side effects, off-label uses, or as the reason why only one SSRI works for somebody. Unfortunately its purity of serotonin action can lead to interference with dopamine and norepinephrine, and that can cause some problems.
More of Lexapro’s pros, cons, and interesting stuff

6.  Lexapro’s (escitalopram oxalate’s) side effects

6.1  Typical side effects

The usual for SSRIs: headache, nausea, dry mouth, sweating, sleepiness or insomnia (with insomnia more likely), diarrhea or constipation, and assorted sex problems. Weight gain is a lot less likely than with other SSRIs and all of the typical side effects tend to be milder. The most likely sexual side effect is anorgasmia, i.e. you can’t come, no matter how much romance and/or porn is involved. In the prudish language of PI sheets and clinical trials, anorgasmia affects only women. With men the problem is listed as an “ejaculation disorder.”

6.2  Uncommon side effects

SSRI-Induced Indifference / Apathy. Teeth grinding (bruxism). Yawning, jaw tightening and clenching to the point of temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ) and a dental specialist’s intervention (e.g. wearing a mouth guard at night).

6.3  Freaky rare side effects

Sexsomnia (I wish I could read Dutch), labial pigmentation and lichenoid eruption, and atypical jitteriness syndrome.
More about Lexapro’s side effects

7.  What Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate) is best known for

The Lexapro Yawn. It doesn’t matter that you’re not tired. Lexapro can make you yawn so intensely and so often that your jaw can pop out of its joints and you’ll need to see a doctor about that.
I’m sorry if reading this made you yawn, especially if you take Lexapro.
More about Lexapro’s black box warnings, noted traits & effects

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8.  Lexapro’s (escitalopram oxalate’s) half-life & how long until Lexapro clears your system

Half-life: 27–32 hours. Clearance: 6–8 days.
Drugs.com’s drug-drug and drug-food interaction checker
More about Lexapro’s pharmacokinetics & noted drug-drug & drug-food interactions

9.  How Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate) works (the best current guess at any rate).

Lexapro does what all SSRIs are supposed to do: increasing the transmission and levels of serotonin, inhibiting the serotonin reuptake pump, desensitizing 5HT1A receptors, and nothing else. As far as neurotransmitters are concerned.
More about how Lexapro works. AKA Lexapro’s mechanism/method of action, or pharmacodynamics.

10.  Comments

Lexapro is probably the best-tolerated and most effective SSRI currently on the market. Mainly because it’s just a little better than Celexa (citalopram). Celexa was chosen as the first antidepressant used in the massive STAR*D study for being the best-tolerated SSRI and was considered the most effective. Lexapro was too new at the time. Is Celexa really more effective than all the other SSRIs? Yes, but not by all that much. It did rather well in the STAR*D study, with almost half the people responding, but a third of them relapsing. One thing Lexapro does well is preventing relapses.
More comments As if I didn’t go on long enough here.
Consumer/patient comments about & experiences with Lexapro

11.  Discussion board, PI sheet and other allegedly useful links

Crazy Meds’ Lexapro discussion board
Lexapro’s Full US Prescribing Information / PI Sheet
Allegedly Useful Links. Mostly any official sites we could find for this med and PI sheets from countries other than the US.

Lexapro Index | Brand and Generic Availability ›
Crazy Meds Comprehensive Lexapro pages

Bibliography

Date created Sunday, 05 December 2010 at 13:49 Page Creator: Jerod Poore Last edited by:

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Lexapro Basic Overview by Jerod Poore is copyright 2010

Page design and explanatory material copyright © 2004 - 2012 Jerod Poore. All rights reserved.

Almost all of the material on this site is copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 Jerod Poore. Except, of course, the PI sheets - those are the property of the drug companies who developed the drugs the sheets are about - and any documents that are written by other people which may be posted to this site will remain the property of the original authors. You cannot reproduce this page or any other material on this site outside of the boundaries of fair use copying without the express permission of the copyright holder. That’s usually me, so just ask first. That means if want to print out a few pages to take to your doctor, therapist, counselor, support group, non-understanding family members or something like that - then that’s OK to just do. Go for it! Please. As long as you include this copyright notice and the following disclaimer, I’m usually cool with it.

All rights reserved. No warranty is expressed or implied in this information. Consult one or more doctors and/or pharmacists before taking, or changing how you take any neurological and/or psychiatric medication. Your mileage may vary. What happened to us won’t necessarily happen to you.
The information on Crazy Meds pertains to and is intended for adults. While some information about children and adolescents is occasionally presented (e.g. US FDA approvals), pediatric-specific data such as dosages, side effects, off-label applications, etc. are rarely included in the articles on drugs or discussed on the forum. If you are looking for information regarding meds for children you’ll have to go somewhere else.
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All information on this site has been obtained through our personal experience and the experiences family, friends, what people have reported on various reputable sites all over teh intergoogles, the medications’ product information / summary of product characteristic (PI/SPC) sheets, and from sources that are referenced throughout the site. As such the information presented here is not intended as a substitute for real medical advice from your real doctor, just a compliment to it. You should never, ever, replace what a real doctor tells you with something from a website on the Internet. The farthest you should ever take it is getting a second opinion from another real doctor. Educate yourself - always read the PI/SPC sheet or patient information leaflet (PIL) that comes with your medications and never ever throw them away.
Crazy Meds is not responsible for the content of sites we provide links to. We like them, or they’re paid advertisements, or they’re something else we think you should read to help you make an informed decision about a particular med. Sometimes they’re more than one of those things. But what’s on those sites is their business, not ours.
Very little information about visitors to this site is collected or saved. From time to time I look at search terms used and which pages they bring up in an effort to make the information I present more relevant. And the country of origin, just because I’m geeky like that. That’s about it. Depending on how you feel about Schrodinger, our privacy policy should either assuage or exacerbate your paranoia.
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Crazy Meds is optimized for the browser you’re not using on the platform you wish you had. Between you and me, it all looks a lot cleaner using Firefox or Safari, which is what a plurality of visitors use. And I’m running Windows XP3. On a computer that sits on top of my desk. With a 23 inch monitor. Hey, at least you can make the text larger or smaller by clicking on the + or - buttons in the upper right hand corner. If you have Java enabled. Like 99% of the websites on the planet, Crazy Meds is hosted on domain running an open source operating system with a variety of open source applications, including the software used to display what you’ve been reading. As such Crazy Meds is not responsible for whatever weird shit your browser does or does not do when you read this site².
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¹ While there are plenty of books to help you with hypochondria, for some reason there’s not much in the way of websites. Then again, staying off of the Internet is a large part of curing/managing the disorder.

² Have I mentioned how open source operating systems for commercial applications is one of the dumbest ideas in the history of dumb ideas?
[begin rant] I rent a dedicated server for Crazy Meds. It’s sitting on a rack somewhere in Southern California along with a bunch of other servers that other people have rented. The hardware is identical, but no two machines have exactly the same operating systems. I don’t even need to see what is on any of the others to know this. If somebody got their server at the exact same time, with the exact same features as I did, I’m confident that there would be noticeable differences in some aspects of the operating systems. So what does this mean? For one thing it means that no two computers in the same office of a single company have the same operating system, and the techs can spend hours figuring out what the fuck the problem could be based on that alone. It also means that application software like IP board that runs the forum here has to have so many fucking user-configurable bells and whistles that even when I read the manual I can’t find every setting, or every location that every flag needs to be set in order for a feature to run the way I want it to run. And in the real world it means you can get an MBA not only with an emphasis on resource planning, but with an emphasis on using SAP - a piece of software so complex there are now college programs on how to use it. You might think, “But don’t people learn how to use Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator in college?” Sure, in order to create stuff. And in a way you’re creating stuff with SAP. But do you get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis on Photoshop?
Back in the Big Iron Age the operating systems were proprietary, and every computer that took up an entire room with a raised floor and HVAC system, and had less storage and processing power than an iPhone, had the same operating system as every other one, give or take a release level. But when a company bought application software like SAP, they also got the source code, which was usually documented and written in a way to make it easy to modify the hell out of it. Why? Because accounting principles may be the same the world over, and tax laws the same across each country and state, but no two companies have the same format for their reports, invoices, purchase orders and so forth. Standards existed and were universally ignored. If something went wrong it went wrong the same way for everyone, and was easy to track down. People didn’t need to take a college course to learn how to use a piece of software.
I’m not against the open source concept entirely. Back then all the programmers read the same magazines, so we all had the same homebrew utilities. We even had the forerunner to QR Code to scan the longer source code. Software vendors and computer manufacturers sponsored conventions so we could, among other things, swap recipes for such add-ons and utilities. While those things would make our lives easier, they had nothing to do with critical functions of the operating system. Unless badly implemented they would rarely cause key application software to crash and burn. Whereas today, with open source everything, who the hell knows what could be responsible some part of a system failing. [/end rant]