Really worried about Setraline, help please

I'm sure you're right really. I have taken antibiotics in the past for infections, and I know that some of them list really bad side effects, and I was OK. I also know that my father takes enough different tablets to stock a pharmacy, but seems generally OK.

I used to treat patients for cancer, using radiation, which is a really scary  thing to many people, but also really useful and effective, and I used to (hopefully) manage to reassure patients that it was worth having.

I suppose maybe it's partly that I'm now having to admit to myself just what point I've reached to now be taking this medication. I will give them a try

Dave

Thanks for your reassurance and advice, I'll try them tomorrow, when I don't need to drive.

Best wishes,

Dave

I felt quite OK for a while after the great relief of finding my GP sympathetic, but was very upset again later, and then had an awful night, hardly any sleep, crying and then my mind working overtime. At one point I decided to decline treatment, but I have now managed to talk some sense into myself. My real worry was that the counselling or whatever it will be might change so much about me that I've adjusted to for some 50 years, that what would remain would not be me!

I've managed to convince myself that I would still be the same person that people already know, at least in the important respects, still hopefully empathetic and compassionate. I have never managed to let anyone come close enough to me to form a very intimate relationship. I honestly don't think it will happen now at my age, but if I could just fully comes to terms with the death of my mother (who died 15 years ago!!!), I think I'd feel much better. I am so sad that I felt estranged from the mother I worshipped as a small boy and didn't get the chance to properly forgive her before she died, for wrecking my parents' marriage. If I could come to terms with this, I'd be quite happy to live alone, possibly with a dog for company. (I normally get on fine on my own nowadays, really enjoy cycling and even holidaying alone). Oddly, whilst I'm certainly a loner in some ways, I find it easy to talk to strangers nowadays (what a change from me up to about age 40!) - or patients when I was at work. I was actually popular and well thought of at work, quite a laugh most of the time. I just clam up if conversation starts to probe too intimately. If I could manage my severe cleithrophobia, it would be a bonus. (This was ostensibly the reason I sought treatment, before I really opened my "can of worms").

When I was desperately lonely at university in my 20's, still longing for a "significant other", I could listen to Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony and burst into tears and feel a great deal better afterwards. But I really must accept that what I am experiencing now is so much worse and I will start the Setraline tomorrow (had to drive to the shops today and so didn't try it today). 

I hope I've not upset you writing this, and apologise if I have. I have no-one other than the GP at present that I've told this to.

Many thanks for your reassurance regarding side effects,

love,

Dave

of course you haven't upset me - not in the slightest - except I felt sorrow when you were describing your relationship with your mum.

You've really opened up today, and the more you do this, whether it's on this site or with a therapist, you will find it benefits you.

Love Tess

Thank you. I do find it helpful to unburden here to focus my thoughts, i just wouldn't want to put anything which might be upsetting to anyone.

I had a better day yesterday and debated hard about starting the Sertraline (managed to spell it right at last- perhaps I 'm fosusing better!). I was a bit concerned that my mood improvement might be temporary, so took the first one about 10pm.

I thought I noticed a few sensations, but hardly anything. I read as normal (a light read) and fell asleep fine. The prostate woke me as usual and I was awake for a while with some sad thoughts and just a bit weepy. I had quite bad flatus, but was thinking that overall, I was very happy with how the tablets were affecting so little me.

I woke up with the most tremendous start, as if a bomb had gone off under the bed. I often wake with a bit of a start, but as nothing compared to this. I had the most overwhelming feeling of terror I've EVER experienced, and my heart was pounding and arms really agitated. (Maybe a reall bad nightmare I've forgotten?). This stage passed fairly quickly, but was soon followed by nausea, and then I felt an urgent need for the loo.

I somehow managed to get downstairs to the loo (I didn't want to wake my dad by using the one upstairs). I was very unsteady on my feet. By the time I was downstairs, I was colliding with things and barely able to stand.

I had a bout of diarrhoea and propped myself against the wall feeling extremely giddy, and then, though my forehead was cold, i began to pour sweat from my forehead. I always sweat quite a lot when hot (It often drips from my cycling helmet on a hot day). But again, this was as nothing I'd ever experienced before. It was absolutley gushing and loudly hitting the floor. I managed after some time to get to lie down. Just a queasy stomach an heavy legs now.

I am not taking any more of the tablets. I will ring the GP on Monaday to explain.

Since unburdening myself to her, I have felt vastly better about myself. I now remember that I used to be able to acknowledge to myself that I had good reason to feel compassion for myself. I think this was somehow lost due to the guilt I've felt since my mother died, over not fully forgiving her (forgiving intellectually but not with that vestige of a hurt 10 year old's mind the deception I was implicated in). 

I'm feeling positive and am determined to cope without the meds and fully heal with the talking therapy.

(Sorry this has become so long-winded!)

Love,

Dave

I'm also glad that you're feeling benefit from the sertraline already. That's good news. Love Tess

Best wishes and I hope you are soon feeling much better,

Dave

Best wishes to you.

I felt not too bad mood-wise yesterday, and wondered long and hard about starting the tablets, but finally took one at about 10pm, worried that I might have been lulled into a false state of security and that the sooner I got them started, the better

.

I thought I noticed a few sensations around my face, and some women on the TV seemed to have grotesque faces, but I don't know whether it was my imagination, or whether it was visual disturbance.

I fell asleep fine, but woke in the night as I usually do (aging men's waterworks!) and was then awake for a while, but felt fine apart from quite a lot of wind. I thought, "great, I'll be fine with these things

I then woke with an immense start with the worst feeling of terror I have ever experienced, someting I hope never to feel again, and the next half hour or so was hell physically, though nothing compared to the terror. I am not taking any more of the tablets.

I admire you for persevering with the medication, to my mind that takes real guts, and I just wish that those individuals who sometimes find it difficult to empathise with those of us who suffer psychological conditions could appreciate what guts it really takes.

I was beginning to feel somewhat better before I took the tablet because my chat with the doctor on Thursday had been such a huge help to me. I will now ring her on Monday to tell her that I've stopped the tablets and will cope and look forward to my talking therapy.

Very best wishes,

Dave

If I were you I would take the tablets in the morning as by the end of the day you should feel a lot calmer! I take mine at 8.30 every morning, I once was on another anxiety tablet and I used to take that at night and that made me feel terrible, I used to get heart pulpertations, sweats, shakes and wake up with a start if I managed to get any sleep that was!!

The hardest part for all anxiety sufferes taking medication is getting through the first few weeks it's extremely difficult but it's worth it.

X

I am convinced that I do not need this medication and that in my case it was prescribed incorrectly, despite the GP's best intentions.

She was originally going to describe a beta blocker for a specific anxiety issue (as far as I can deduce), but on seeing me for the second time, she must have decided, because of the state that I was in, that I had depression.

The reason I was in the state I was in, I have now realised, was extreme distress that I had no-one I could unburden to (absolutely no-one), and that in raking into my past, I had opened unhealed wounds. Having, at times, extremely low self-esteem (I can seem confident, but it doesn't take much to knock me flat), I was in a state of anxiety about what to tell the GP. Would she judge me, think I was a drama queen, or narcissist? 

She was very kind (which I am so unused to, chiefly because I usually never give people the chance to be nice, fearing rejection!) that I "lost it" again), and told me that I'd done amazingly well to hold things together given life events I'd had. This reminded me that I was once able to believe this myself (at a time when I was generally happy and pretty well-balanced). I used to believe in myself more, not because I'm a braggart, but because I acknowledged that probably many others would have ended up in the same boat as myself in the same circumstances, (instead of telling myself I'm a total failure, a thought that can come too easily).

The GP's sympathy made me feel much better, so much so that I wasn't sure whether I needed the Sertraline. But I decided that maybe I'd better try it because she wanted me to, and I trusted her, and because I wasn't sure if my better mood was deception.

After I had the terrible reaction to the drug, I gave myself a talking to, telling myself that my body deserved better than this horrendous treatment.

I am pretty confident that I suffered serotonin toxicity. I take a lot of exercise, far more than the amount suggested to achieve a good serotonin level. I am convinced therefore, that I suffered a serotonin overdose due to the Sertaline. (According to what I've read, I should actually have gone to A & E).

Much self-examination, helped by the awfulness of the experience, has, I am convinced, revealed the source of my problem. I was still feeling suppressed guilt due to events surrounding the death of my mother, 15 years ago, which I'd hidden from myself but not resolved. As a cancer treatment professional, I blamed myself for not realising that she had ovarian cancer (in fact, even consultants, scans etc missed this often very difficult-to-diagnose disease) and I blamed myself that I was not there when she died, (I'd left the hospital about an hour before, for reasons too complicated to explain briefly) and felt I was a coward. Mercifully, I had already said goodbye, and healed the painful rift which had grown between us (as I felt). Sadly, I did not see her very peaceful end: my memories are of some rather distressing events in preceding days. To see her fall asleep peacefully was sadly, a comfort I unwittingly denied myself and might have saved me much disterss (I hadn;t expected her to pass away so quickly).

All of these things are clear to me now. I think I've become a better, more insightful person over this awful journey of the past few weeks, and am sure that further counselling will mend me, without the drug.

I am not at all trying to suggest that Sertaline is not a great thing in appropriate circumstances. I just don't think it was appropriate in my case.

Very best wishes,

Dave

(sorry this is so long!)

All power to you! What dose did the doctor prescribe?

I agree that further counselling will help you. All the best, Tess

It was only 50mg, but I can only assume that it must have been due to the fact that my serotonin levels were actually OK (I'm assuming you can OD on serotonin if you don't have a deficiency of it, but I don't really know. It seems intuitively right).

I had got so worked up about "opening up" to the GP. The advice on mental health websites is "take a friend or relative to the consultation", but I had no-one. In fact, I feel that I've done damage (not too much hopefully) by raking up things with my father and sister about my mother, whose death also hit them very hard (and my father had been divorced for 35 years when she died).

I've just been really cheered up because my half-brother (ringing to wish my father "Happy Birthday": he calls him Dad and thinks far more of him than his biological father) has told me to ring him whenever I need.

Many thanks for your best wishes, I'll get there!

love,

Dave

You're right, Dave - you WILL get there. love Tess

love, Dave