Anyone else taking 200mg sertraline?

Are you still getting the same positive effects on 50mg as you were on 150mg months ago? Are you planning on stopping entirely or you just wanted to be on a lower dose?

Hi Holly,

Thank you for the reply ! Can you please tell me if you had any ups and downs during these 12 months?

It’s been 10 months that I’m on sertraline but I still have bad days ,,,not as many as I used to have before.

Are you totally back to your self?

Hi,

In answer to your question I did think about coming off totally a month ago, but wasn't sure if it was depression of bad PMT but after 3 days I felt really crappy so I restarted it. As you'll be aware you always need to increase these meds slowly at first and then decrease them slowly when you want to come off. I get very bad depression in the winter, SAD, and living with chronic pain, so my GP suggested I stay on 50mg for this reason.

I was in a very dark place when I had to be put on sertraline a couple of years ago. I think that it's a combined effort of the medication working and also learning to adapt and accept me new and v different life with by spinal problems that led to an improvement in my depressive symptoms. I think it would be unreasonable ( at least for me ) not to accept that some days will still feel  bad, I think it's more important to look as a whole. 

The ups and downs are to be expected I think, but so long as there is a general trend of feeling more composed and together and feeling able to reconnect with the world and enjoy your life that's what matters. I think sometimes we can overly assess our mood. 

As my depression is is part related to my loss of my career due to ill health, chronic pain etc it's not as easy to judge the effect of any medication on my mood day to day. Some days my back is so bad I am on a lot of morphine and other days I am able to do more of the things I enjoy.

I also think it's important to not solely rely of the medication, I have tried and got a lot of benefit from Mindful meditation - I went on a course over 8 weeks - which was brilliant. Exercise in any form is good too, I'm a bit limited though with my back issues. But that would be advice, all these meds have side effects, and certainly after 10 months I don't think you;re going to see any big changes now unless you make them yourself, or you could always revisit your dr and consider changing to a different AD. Good luck xx

Hi Holly,

Thank you so much for the time you have spent to answer and give such a useful tips to me .i really appreciate it.

My depression started when I ve given birth to my son a year ago .

The doctor put me in sertraline mainly because I ve been breastfeeding and this is absolutely safe for the baby while other antidepressants aren’t .

If I looked  back I can definitely say that I ve had an improvement which came very slowly.

I have spent 4 months by taking 100mh which didn’t help and basically I started noticing an improvement only when we upped to 150mg .

I m still breastfeeding so we won’t switch to other medicines now.

I know also that another  reason that makes me  depressed is the fact that I no longer work, and I have no time to do things for myself as I am the only person who takes care of the baby here in The uk.

My physiatrist in Greece suggests to stay on a low dose of sertraline for ever as I have history of depression and that would help to avoid another serious depression episode in the future .

I hope all the best to you  and I hope you stay strong despite the situation with your spine.

I  m sure mindfulness has helped you  a lot .

Thank you once again xx