My experience so far on Zoloft/Sertraline. 6 weeks

My background>20 plus years of anxiety on and off. Last year mostly on(chest pain like heart problems, shortness of breath, really bad heartburn, higher heart rate and blood pressure, and negative thoughts of just falling over dead at any moment. Of course next comes the depression and the feeling of just being so tired of just trying to survive another day with no hope of ever being better. This last year has been just hell. Looking back I am not sure how some days i made it through each day. I have felt like i was being tortured. The pain, anguish feelings were overwhelming, but i kept on going...barely. 6 weeks ago i had to get bloodwork for my clonezpam script. I knew i needed help and asked about zoloft, due to thinking my heartburn which nothing helped was caused maybe by benzos...i then was taking .25 2xday. So, the dr thought it would be a good option to try. Start at .25 and up after 2-3 weeks to .50 if i wanted to. Okay to take clonezepam as needed with. So here i am. I work 7am-7pm 5 days/week, and do take .125 clonezepam morning and .25mg sertraline at 7:15 pm at home(changed quickly from morning to night due to feeling dizzy and sleep problems). Still only Sleep....4-5 hours wakeup, usually can go back for an hour or two. Urination....mine caused by dry mouth/drinking more water. Sexual desire....none, zip, 0 for 4-5 weeks then back to normal. Appetite...none for 3-4 weeks/lost 10lbs/picks up a little more each week after. Headaches...stopped after 7-10 days. Dizziness...lasted after dose only and 10-14 days. Negative thoughts...subsided after 2 weeks, still have on some days due to strenuous work and normal higher heart rate. Now my thoughts>>>The first 3-5 days (for some people maybe 3-4 weeks) was absolutely miserable after starting sertraline and i came very close to stopping(reading this forum gave me encouragement to keep going). So glad i kept going now. I wish i would have found this sooner. In the past i tried paxil/ effexor and had terrible lasting side effects with crazy bad thoughts. This so far is different for me. Truthfully, i may need to up to .50 and i may still, but .25 has helped me drastically. What has it helped for me so far?>>chest pains/heartburn gone. This is the biggie because these pains always made me think it was my heart even after many normal tests. Also, my resting and sleeping heart rate is lower so i have more energy and when i do sleep i have deeper sleep. The best thing is that when actively working my HR still goes up to like 120-130 but when i sit down it goes back down to around 70ish or lower. I used to feel panic and it would stay 90-100 for too long. This tells me it is helping my anxietyand thought process. I now have some hope where 6 weeks ago i felt doomed to the end. I am not great, but greatly better than I was. Finally, to anyone reading this... Give sertraline a chance to start working. If it don't work for you, keep hope something will. Sorry to hijack your forum. Any questions just ask. love to all CJ

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