I have been on sertraline for four and a half months

Carolyn, when you switched from seroxat to mirt, did you do a straight switch, or was there a taper of seroxat at the same time you went on mirt?

Hi I was on it twenty years ago for post natal depression, only four months. Fourth month was one every second day and then stopped. Never had depression again til I was 50 so convinced it's hormone related for me.

Sorry, I think I meant that for hottydog!

I have had this problem since i was about 13/14 years old. Then i started to feel better without taking any meds. Around 1972 i went down with a real bang!!!!! Then i became pregnsnt with our daughter (plaaned) so i stopped the meds. Liz was born june 1973. I carried on not taking the meds and in may 1975 david was born. A couple of months later i went down with a real bang this time with post natsl dep. I was put on anafranil. These took a while to kick in. Eventully they did and gradually with help of dr i gradually weaned off them. A few years later it happened again. Gradually weaning off them. Again it happened again. This time i was put on seroxat. I started to feel better aftet sbout 2 weeks with no side effects that i can remember. So the dr put me on the maintenance dose cos he ssid it was clinical depression. I have had a couple of blips during this time. Increased dosesge until i felt better and back to maintenance. Then a blip in july and sertraline. I have anxiety and awful unwanted thoughts. Even tho i try to do things to occupy my mind only half of it is on what i am doing and the other hslf on these awful thoughts. I hsvent been sble to read a book since july. I have an appt to see a counseller on 4th jan.

I was on a maintence dose 10mg of seroxat and i had a dip. Went to see the doctr who was new to me to ask if i cud go up to 20mg and when i felt better to slowly reduce the dose back to 10mg. The new dr said that seroxat

Was the worst tablets i could take. He then put me on 50mg sertraline. No there was nothing said about withdrawal symptoms for seroxat. I had taken my tab of 10mg the morning i saw the doc and then the next day i took the first 50mg of sertraline. Up to 200mg now but it is taking a long time to make me feel better.

Agree Betsy. I had horrific wd from swooping from mirtazapine to sertraline. Did it over two weeks missing a day on docs advice. Was in hell for a month ended up in A and E three times. Suicidal anxiety massive weight loss. Now doc says I did warn you!!! NO YOU DIDN'T

Wow, I am just blown away at by all the stories of doctor incompetency when it comes to psych drugs, and we are taught to trust that the doctor is right!  When it comes to our bodies and what we put in them, I think we have a duty to ourselves to question and research before taking that first pill!

 

I really have struggled with sertraline. Some people say stick with it and one day you will feel better ????

Hi Shiralee, do you  mean that you miss days and then feel symptoms even after you take it again?  If you are missing a few doses in a week, that is a lot of instability for the brain, in that you are suffering from withdrawal a few times a week.  This is why the advice by doctors to take doses every other day when tapering off is so off base, because the brain can't possible adapt when it is getting a full dose one day and none the next!

You may have hit tolerance withdrawal as well, where the same dose of med is causing withdrawal symptoms.  This is also known as "pooping out."

Whatever you choose to do, do NOT just stop sert and start another med; you will still suffer from a cold turkey withdrawal doing so, and it is unlikely the next med will be able to prevent that.

I was in protracted withdrawal from going off Effexor last year, and after a time, not realizing what was happening, I was open to trying Viibryd.  I had a severely bad reaction to it, with off the charts fear, anxiety, doom and insomnia!  My nervous system was sensitized!  I have since reinstated Effexor at a lower dose and am tapering off, and I feel much better now, on a subtherapeutic dose, than I ever did on higher doses of Effexor!

So, if you need help with tapering off, I created this post to help people with that:  

https://patient.info/forums/discuss/withdrawing-from-antidepressants-and-benzos-safely-485891?page=0&order=Oldest#1809368

The 'Tolerance Withdrwal' sounds very likley!! Thankyou! My doctor has allowed me to 'Up' and 'Down' my 50mg to 100mg as i feel the need, telling me i have the good 'In think' to do so, therefore i have been taking 100mg, 50mg and none some days. Im not sure my doc should have allowed this??  Im not trying any other brand of SSRI's at all at the moment. The side effects of say '4days abstinent' physycally is immense! Overall, i do believe Sertraline is very good, im just not taking them effectivly.

Thankyou for the insite. I think the best thing to do is take 50mg everyday without fail?? 

I have just read through the links you posted. For the parts i mostly understood, i could not agree more! The ups and downs on any meds are very serious and yes, the professionals do give these meds out willingly. I feel sorry for the in a sense having to cope with the uncontrollable numer of patients flooding in. 

Thankyou for posting these links, they are very helpful!!!

Hi Shiralee, 

Your doctor should not have advised that type of usage!  You were totally confusing your system!  Maybe he thought you were going to drop to a dosage and stay there awhile, and then updose as needed but stay there....These drugs cause remodeling of the brain and nervous system thorughout your body.  Think of ivy growing on a tressis, with the drug being the trellis.  If you removed the trellis (ie. stop the drug or lower the dose), things just don't hold up!   That is why changes must be made very gradually, and if drops are too big you will have withdrawal symptoms in response because a new imbalance is created every time there is a change.  It takes time for the nervous system to adapt to the different level of the drug's action.

This is why they always say it takes about 4 weeks for you to see improvement on the drugs, with start up side effects in along the way, because the system is slow to make those adaptations.

That is awful advice. My daughter is on it three years at 100mg and if she misses 2 in a row she knows all about it and dips quickly. I would stay on100 til you feel stable, at least a month then go down to 50. However I was told 50 does nothing and the normal maintenance dose is 100.