My daughter is withdrawing

Hi Crystal,

Thanks for your post,

Im sorry to hear the situation your daughter is in.

These are typical SSRI withdrawal symptoms, and you will find many posts on here relating to them.

Did your daughter stop cold turkey? If so then symptoms can last for around a month, it really depends on the individual.

If she has suicidal thoughts this is an EMERGENCY and she needs to see a Doctor immediately.

I would put her back on 25mg too.

You can get liquid Sertraline and then do a more gradual dose reduction, no less than 1 week between reductions due to Sertralines half life,

Thanks,

Jake.

Hi CrystalI

I tapered the dose very slowly. Ridiculously slowly in fact and STILL had bad discontinuation symptoms. Very bad anger and digestive upset, sleep disturbance were all there. If your daughter stopped cold turkey, it doesn't surprise me she's experiencing these things from stopping. 

If you can get her to take a tablet and the symptoms resolve quite quickly I believe it's a good indication of whether the symptoms are discontinuation related or a return of original symptoms. 

I have no experience with suicidal thoughts and would treat that as an EMERGENCY.

Best of luck

 

Another option is to use Fluoxetine (Prozac) as a bridging medication.

The half life of Prozac is 1 week vs 1 day for Zoloft, hence the worse withdrawals.

Oh, so sorry to hear of your daughter's struggle!  This drug can be very difficult to withdraw from.  I took it for years with no problems until I stopped taking it.  The moodiness, anxiety and crying are all part of that unfortunately.  What helped me was drinking lots of water, but mostly taking long, deep breaths in and slowly out for a minute or so at a time. It really helps calm the body.  I did this many times a day.  Being outside helped. Do you think the suicidal thoughts are related to feeling the symptoms so deeply?  I felt that some of the time. Just wanting those awful feelings to go away and no way to escape. But some drugs actually create suicidal thoughts. So don't know. Definately your doctor should hear about that.  But be prepared, many doctors are totally unaware of Sertraline withdrawal problems and some actually deny they exist.  Your daughters symptoms may go on for weeks.  Just try to help her breathe though the worst of it.  Best to you both, Ellen

It is a concern with teens that suicidal thoughts can be a symptom of a low dose of sertraline. They begin to feel a little better, are feeling motivation just enough to start contemplating suicide. Careful monitoring is essential. Is she getting counselling? Super critical to do counselling with meds. I'm not a doc, but am just sharing from the knowledge I have gained over several years of personal experience of teens and adults on this medication. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

Thanks everyone for the advice. She seems to be slowly improving. I have been monitoring her closely and contacted her psychiatrist...her school...and her counselors...we actually have 2 therapist that come to our house for an intensive therapy that she has...we have a crisis team working with the 2 therapist so if i feel like she gets to an unsafe point i will get her hospitalized right away...