Posted by Jack Smith on March 26, 2003, at 17:12:54
In reply to Thanks, Jack and further question: » Jack Smith, posted by Janelle on March 26, 2003, at 16:20:21
> Thanks for the advice. I have a question - if Lexapro consists *only*(?) of the active ingredients in Celexa, why wouldn't a switch from Celexa to Lexapro go smoothly? This whole issue confuses me. Perhaps Lexapro also includes some chemical or reaches a receptor that Celexa does not? There must be something more to this business of Lexapro simply removing the inactive ingredients from Celexa?
I don't understand psychopharmacology to give you a good enough answer but I will tell you what my pdoc told me. He said that it is not as simple as just removing the inactive ingredients. Basically, they split the celexa molecule in half, concluding that one half is therapeutic while the other half is not. Theoretically, this should reduce s/e's and there were SOME clinical trials to back it up but not very significant differences. Anyway, he said that he thinks the "ineffective" half of the celexa molecule is not necessarily "ineffective" and may work in concert with the other half. He said that he and his colleagues all have concluded that celexa should be used as a first choice over lexapro because none of them were very impressed with lex and they have a lot of experience with celexa.
He did say that more and more pdocs are prescribing lex because the pharm company that owns the two drugs has completely stopped promoting celexa and is therefore not giving out any samples of celexa so it is easier to just give people samples of lex. I am sure there are some who will benefit from lex who have not benefitted from celexa but in my mind and in my pdocs, Lexapro is just a gimmick. Celexa's patent is running out so they wanted to come up with something else.
JACK
poster:Jack Smith
thread:213128
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030325/msgs/213163.html