Zoloft/Sertraline

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Been prescribed this yesterday.

Anyone else on/been on this, and is it effective?
Had any side effects?
Trouble coming off it?

My gp said it is one of the anti depressants with less side effects.

I took it twice, doubling the dosage the 2nd day & had a strong unpleasant reaction, but someone else i spoke to went through something similar & really enjoyed it.

I wont elaborate, seeing as it sounds like youve started already and will probably be fine. If anything does happens dont worry - it should pass quickly.

Not started yet, was going to start tomorrow.
It is supposed to not have too many side effects, other than nausea...
I would not take a double dose either. He has started me on 50mg or mcg, whichever it is.

I took half the prescribed dose as a precaution, then reacted strongly to taking the official dose the next day.

The reaction had a lot in common with serotonergic street-drugs like mushrooms & acid , but in a more physical way & lacking the psychedelia and replacing it with other strange side effects like teeth-rattling & feet numbing & twitching.

If you go ahead with it, i would advise staying at home for a day - i think it peaks after either 3 or 6 hours and the overwhelming 'trippy' phase was over in about an hour. If nothing much has hapenned after 10 hrs or so then it probably wont.

This other person i spoke to had a huge wave of euphoria though (i had warned them beforehand). IIRC we both agreed afterward that it could scare the hell out of someone who wasnt already familiar with that class of drugs (E, acid etc). Actually, thinking back i was having a really good time until i peaked and the physical stuff started - so maybe it can be enjoyed if your mentally prepared?

Uh oh, that puts me off considerably as I am prone to panic attacks if I get symptoms like that... *sigh* Why can these things not be more simple?
I have not seen any side effects like that mentioned on Wiki etc.

I saw a paper on 'LSD flashback syndrome' which talked about a strong sertraline-street-drug interactions occuring, even though the other drug may have been taken years ago. So it could be something like that that most people are safe from.

imo taking these drugs is a BIG long-term step. I have very strong reservations about their over-prescription and general place in the medical system which ive said enough about on other threads. I wont tell you straight out to NOT try them, because i dont know the severity of what your up against and what youve tried alrady, but it probably wouldnt hurt to postpone the descision for a week or so, do some more research and make a better informed & confident choice. If i was still at the wikipedia stage, i personally wouldnt be taking such a step on the next day.

Have you tried 5-HTP or eating high-serotonin foods (walnuts etc)? My general view is never to take a complex patented designer drug when you could simply supplement the natural precursors to whatever chemical/system your trying to balance. Making the brain work better via the natural routes, the way it was designed to work iyswim.

Personally I don't believe in "anti-depressants" but see exercise or religious devotion as way better ways to get one's mood up. All the anti-depressants have quite a bit of complications for everyone, though most people seem to tolerate them well enough to be able to stay on them. It's the worst when you start on them and when you eventually want to get off, even if you gradually taper the dosage off. I read David Healy recommended that doctors should tell patients to use benzodiazepines like Xanax when starting on an anti-depressant to reduce the problems.

Concerning SSRI's and such, most studies show that placebo has like 80% of the effect of the actual drugs, so the mood boost is largely dependent on what placebo effect you can achieve, how much you believe in the drug etc. I feel they're a bad solution when dealing with a long-term problem. I also feel these drugs are simply a weak substitute society offers for the unrewarding lives many people have in a modern society, like a tissue - they don't deal with the real problem.

But depression surely can result from chemical issues in the brain which cannot be resolved simply through diet and exercise?
I have battled for sometime now with a total lack of motivation, constant fatigue, no concentration and very poor memory and these are making my life difficult.

I took one tablet today and it made me feel a little sick and dizzy but nothing otherwise.
I really don't know what to do for the best anymore.
I have resisted medication now for 9 years but seem to just have become worse and worse psychologically.

I've been taking Sertraline for two weeks. The first two weeks I was prescribed 50mg a day and now I'm starting my third week my dose has been upped to 100mg a day.

The only side effects I've experienced were a dodgy belly for the first 24 hours and my anxiety did go up for a while.

The higher anxiety is meant to be temporary and is common. My doctor prescribed me 2mg Diazepam to help with this. I don't take them everyday, just when they are really needed and my doctor only gave me a ten day supply but said I probably wouldn't need all of them as the anxiety is meant to subside pretty quickly.

On the upside though my mood is slowly lifting, I've got more energy and just generally feeling good.

I kind of need it, it helps with anxiety/depression and it also "helps" on my narrow and focused interests, obsessions. I take it for OCD and it seems to help (people with anxiety/depression have a decreased amount of serotonin, chicken and egg dilemma, but if you put back what's not there you usually feel better).

The main side-effect is GI troubles, the serotonin speeds up the digestive track, you'll probably find that you're hungrier, but that's offset due to the same increased metabolic rate (you'll burn it off just the same as if nothing changed).

I'm on 200 mg a day, started on 25, went up to 200 over a month as that was/is the dose required to kill the majority of my panic attacks; I was in a constant state of panic. When I taper the dose down to 150, my panic comes straight back.

I'm probably on it for life now.

Well, the pharmaceutical companies have this unproven and more and more discarded chemical imbalance theory that doesn't make much sense. They're basing it on the fact that some people become depressed without a clear cause in their lives. Personally I belief that the perception of our life is more complicated than that though - I see these as possible causes too:

* Being exposed to an unstimulating environment for an extended period of time.

* Ceasing to perform an activity that used to keep your mood up, and after a little while you start feeling the lack of effect from it, your mood would have been low earlier too if you didn't perform it.

* Suddenly realizing that your hopes in the future that kept you going might be unrealistic.

I feel that almost all depression can be explained with the environment you experience and the way you're able to cope with that. Most people develop minor delusions to offset how unrewarding their lives are, believing they will win the lottery and everything will sort itself out that way, but if you only see reality for what it is, you might easily become depressed from that since your mental quality of life in the modern world isn't that great.

It's an unchallenged fact that exercise is great on the long term for lifting mood, though if you really lack energy, I guess it can be hard getting started. Try to do so though.

I took just one tablet and avoided it today.
Yet I am all anxious and panicky today...and last night, I couldn't sleep! My mind was just totally alert and I kept playing words over and over in my head and talking to self like mad.
Should this happen after just one tablet lol ?

I now don't know what to do.
I want to stop feeling foggy brained and unmotivated and tearful, but I do not want a return to panic attacks etc.

Sounds like getting Xanax might be in order, seems a lot of pharmacologists agree that benzodiazepines make it easier getting started on the SSRI's, can stop taking it when the side effects of the SSRI settles down.

Problem with me is I am very sensitive to medications and I have a sensitive neurological system.
It is almost a damned if I do and damned if I don't situation, as get my alertness back, I am more prone to panic attacks etc,but keep my foggy mind, I have trouble simply reading a page of a book.

Problem with me is I am very sensitive to medications and I have a sensitive neurological system.
It is almost a damned if I do and damned if I don't situation, as get my alertness back, I am more prone to panic attacks etc,but keep my foggy mind, I have trouble simply reading a page of a book.

I've been on Sertraline for a long time. When I first started taking it I noticed it gave me kind of a "fuzzy" or "muffled" feeling. It also gave me a kind of jittery trembly feeling inside my left side. I eventually got used to these feelings and they went away. I can't guarantee whether it worked or not for me. I gradually recovered from my depression, but there were a lot of life changes that probably helped more than the antidepressant.

Now my problem is that I am stuck on Sertraline for life. I get very irritable, completely lose my appetite, and feel teary for no reason if I stop taking it for too long.