My Setraline Diaries

Feeling a bit desperate. Quite an opening remark that I am sure we are all familiar with which is possibly why we find ourselves here in the first place.

I stumbled across this forum earlier today while searching for info on the side effects in the early days of Setraline, and boy am I glad I did. One thing for sure is that we are here together. Some of us will be just reading, some of us will be writing. But within these pages will be stories that are relatable and that for me has to be hugely encouraging to all of us. We are not alone.

So let me set the scene a little....who am I and how did I get here?

In March of 2010 I collapsed during a game of football (soccer for our American friends). I had been dealing with a number of issues at that time including the death of a very close relative. This is all a story for another day and perhaps a different forum but the long and the short of it is I suffered a TIA at the age of 31. Fortunately I recovered physically and mentally I shook it off pretty easily, or so I thought. Truth is I didn't deal with that side of it at all, I didn't take time to process it and didn't seek any psychological help.

Fast forward.............

I have struggled with anxiety for a number of years but in all honesty I didn't know it until about a year ago when I collapsed at work. What I now know is I suffered a panic attack. It had never happened before and frankly was terrifying. After this I had a few months worth of counselling and that seemed to help to the point that I felt ok. My anxiety was general stress. I have a demanding and stressful job and on top of that I am a single parent who has 50% custody of my daughter. I don't have a bad life at all but over the last year (and realistically longer) its really come to the forefront. Most recently the particular focus has been my health and its been a cruel introduction to this type of anxiety. Every little ache, twinge, odd sensation is analysed to the Nth degree. It started with chest pain and I convinced myself I was having a heart attack.........it was acid reflux! As well as this I have developed constant tinnitus which I've lived with for the last month. My first thoughts are always worst case scenario. It's at the point where it's impacting my day to day life now and I have been avoiding doing certain things in case I have a panic attack or a "medical emergency". I can't go on this way. Its affecting me and the people that I love.

A few weeks ago I had a hearing test for the tinnitus and an ECG just to confirm my heart is indeed good. Hearing test was fine and heart find also. So that's two things ruled out. Rather than enjoy that I was finding other possibilities of impending doom. Okay okay I will get the point I have been prescribed Setraline and I want to capture how I have got on and hope that it helps. I sit here on the evening of day 2 so I'll catch up with today later in the week.

Day 1 - My original plan wasn't to start on this day but after talking it through with my girlfriend I thought "why wait?" I hadn't slept well and felt a little weird when I woke up but I am sure that was the anxiety. So down the hatch it went at around about 8.30am. I had heard a few things about side affects but tried to put that to the back of my mind. I already felt in a bit of a heightened state but regardless of I went to play Badminton with some friends followed by a coffee. Still wasn't feeling right and by the time I got home I was feeling very jittery and quietly starting to freak out inside. We had to go into town but my girlfriend looked at me and said "you are panicking aren't you?". Of course she was right I was panicking but I tried to push through it without making a big deal of it. By the time we drove the five minutes to town I was in full on meltdown mode and couldn't get control of myself. My mind was racing a million miles an hour, I was jittery, shaky and convincing myself I was about to die. Eventually I calmed down but it wiped me out for the whole day and I spent a lot of time in bed. As I am sat here now the day after I might well have been heading for that panic attack anyway and it was completely unrelated and hell the big cup of coffee I had probably contributed to all of the jittery feelings I was having. But as I mentioned earlier my anxiety is health related so feeling anything other than absolutely perfect sends me into a panic, or over analysing myself. Over the course of the day there were some milder moments of panic, a couple of gastro issues and some real tiredness. Could these all be the result of taking just one tablet? Are these the sort of issues others have had? And so soon?

To summarise - Meditated using the Headspace app and then took the Setraline. Mood was pretty low in general due to the drama of the day and replaying it all in my mind but I managed to get through the day and sleep okay. Appetite was almost non-existent and just managed to nibble a few things. Stomach felt odd and there was some excuse the description "fall out" from that! Had a full blown panic attack and a couple of smaller moments that I managed to stop from developing into more severe attacks, mostly by being in bed and closing my eyes and trying to focus. Not sure if I am imagining it or they are always that way but pupils seem to be enormous compared to normal. Was glad to get the first dramatic day out of the way.

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