New to sertraline

hello firstly do not be ashamed of taking meds if u had a head ache you would take a pill to ease that so never be ashamed they say 1 in 4 people have been or are on meds for anxiety/depression i bet its higher.. i am on 50mg sertraline u will be fine will take a while to kick in usual 2 plus weeks! u may fine u dont have a applite for a while and feel relaxed a while after taking it .. there are side effects but there is with any meds u take but they will ease off

julie x

Hi..I was on 50mg...don't b afraid to take it..it will hopefully help u but u need to give it few weeks to kick in. After 6 weeks I was upped to 75 and this worked very well. Everybody is different but do give it a try ..worst side effect I had was sweating but not while on 50mg. You deserve to feel well so if I were u I would take whatever helps just remember to keep in touch with your gp as a lot of people need their dose adjusted - either up or down- at first.  Good luck and keep us updated

hello crabsticks,

welcome to the forum. we are all here in the same boat and your medication may or may not give you side effects, just depends on how your body copes. i got off lightly with mine, started on 50mg and worked upto 150mg and settled down now with very few side effects, i've been taking sertraline for 11months now, and i can't rate it enough.  it's saved me and saved my relationship.  my depression and anxiety caused absolute havok with my relationship and to the point where i thought it was best to go and see the GP. i've been on anti-depressants before but none have worked this well for me in the past. yes you are going to still have your bad days but they will be no where near as bad as what they were before the meds.  when i first started taking it i experienced cleanching/stiff jaw, yawning, a bit of a dickie tummy, had a few nasty migranes but i would go to bed straight away and sleep it off, twitching and feeling of electric running up and down my legs and body, especially when tired, fast weight loss but that has settled down again now, at first i thought i was losing too much weight, but i've levelled off now, the very first week i got a bit of nausea but nothing major, my anxiety did kick up a bit more, but settled the following week. it takes about 6-8 weeks for the meds to get into your system.  if you don't notice a difference in yourself after 8 weeks, go back to the GP, thats what i did and went back and they increased me to 100mg. i was very up and down, bad and good days all the time, didn't really know what one day to the next was going to bring me, very difficult to handle, but then again, my depression is quite severe, hense the 150mg but i'm feeling stable, level headed and find it so much easier to cope with general day to day challenges such as hanging the washing up and doing the pots etc, small things like that used to cause me terrible anxiety as silly as it sounds, but now i'm back ontop we are hopefully going to be planning our first baby at the end of the this year.

Sertraline has helped me so much, so stick with it and monitor yourself weekly, note on your calendar the days you feel ok and the days your not okay and see if there is any kind of pattern to your thoughts or triggers that specifically set you off etc, let me know how your getting on and good luck :-)