Partner's "strange thoughts" about me with Sertraline

The first 2 weeks tend to be most acute for side effects like feeling odd and disconnected and spaced out and in my case odd vision effects

Also u go from being overcome with anxiety and fear of having further anxiety to having hours feeling really positive and that you can handle anything which may affect your relationship / view of other people

Finally appetite tends to be deceased and not eating makes me feel weird on top of all else

Hi John,

It certainly sounds worthy of checking with a medical professional to me. Before being put on sertraline myself, I was first given another AD citalopram, and within the first week or so I suffered to most horrendous atack of mania. I have experience in the area of mental health, and am familiar with actions of most of the AD's and recognised it for what it was, stopped it, and saw my dr the first available appointment on the Monday morning ! This doen't happen to many people but it did to me. My point being is that it COULD be an adverse effect, the best person to evaluate this would probably be a trained mental health professional, either a good GP in that area, or psych nurse ( CPN )....they would be best able to evaluate it for what it is. I had to go down this route as my GP despite depnding an hour with me as I was ''coming down'', I had been much worse over the  weekend, wanted to confirm that the initial diagnosis was correct, and that I wasn't manic depressive or bipolar, as the treatment is very different. It was an attack of mania attributable to the citalopram as I thought ! But better safe than sorry, I was after one appointment able to go back to care of my GP. In the BNF it does list psychosis as a poss. side effect of treatment on sertraline. So whilst not common, it can happen. Also, amnesia, confusion and aggresive behavoiur have been noted......personally, I would tentatively seek further advice. 

With regard to inc. in suicidal thoughts, this is possible, and since one of the first effects is to increase motivation in patients, this can be a trigger to actually do something about previous latent suicidal thoughts, which is why patients are better off if they have someone to notice any strange behavious changes in the first month.

Hope this helps, and hope you both get the help you need xx

Dear John,

I feel for you!! Even though 12 months late for advise.

This happened to my husband in April 2017 after 2 weeks of slowly increasing Sertraline. He became very paranoid, initially thinking he was going to be sectioned as he felt his anxiety wasn't controlled and that all doctors were against him and plotting against him. I believe the fear of being sectioned comes from his past as he suffered with anger as a teenager and was taken to a special unit for a while.

He then started directing his strange thoughts onto me, he felt intoxicaded, like drugged. To look at him, he was sweaty, tremors, intense look, dilated pupils, following me everywhere, very distrusting of everything I did, he reported blurred vision and he said he felt cognitively impaired. Of course been a clever guy he internet researched and put came with his conclusion that is must be mercury poisoning but later that changed to drug toxicity (he implies I did it 😞 as you can imagine it was a very difficult exhausting time. I am a nurse and tried my hardest to not react to it but at the time as he had been on other medications I couldn't identify which one it was making him feel this awful.

He's recently decreased it but started feeling very low, from 100mg to 50mg then to 25mg. So he went back to 50mg, within 1.5 weeks he started mentioning drug toxicity from April etc....and has been getting agitated and fixated on certain subjects. His neurologist advised him to come off it very slowly, so he said 'you took it for three months, then take three months to gradually come off it'

What happened to your other half? Are they still taking Sertraline?

Best Wishes

Nessorela