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Sertraline advice

Posted , 6 users are following.

Guest
Guest

Hi all, I've been on sertraline since January. I started off on 50mg and went up to 100mg within 2 weeks. I take my dose on a morning and during the day I feel so drained and exhausted, but by night time I feel wide awake. I have no energy to do anything, I feel very slow and always light headed when I stand up. I've tried changing my diet, eating energy boosting foods and taking extra vitamins but nothing is helping.

I started taking my dose at night time for about a week and a half, but there was no change to my sleep so I'm back to taking it on a morning. I did get pushed up to 150mg, which I was on for about a month. After telling my doctor about how tired I am, he brought me back down to 100mg.

I have tried so many tablets over the years, none have worked. Sertraline hasn't exactly made any positive changes, but I've reached a stage where I feel in-between, but also numb to everything.

My doctor is happy enough with that and won't change my tablets, even though I have mentioned many times how drained I feel. We were working on getting therapy on the side, so he believes that once the therapy kicks in, I'll be feeling less drained.

I'm not sure when I will next see the doctor as they've closed due to the pandemic, and my therapy which was to start on the 9th of April has been cancelled. I'd been waiting since November for that appointment and I'm a bit at a loss what to do as I can't see my doctor to try to change my tablets again or lower my dose.

I've researched a lot about sertraline and nothing helpful has really come up with what I need advice with. Just says take it at night if you feel sleepy during the day.

I can't work at the moment as I'm high risk and currently self isolating and I'm studying games design at college and I haven't done any college work since February. Even when college was open, I didn't have the energy to attend. My motivation has gone and every time I try to get some work done, my concentration goes out of the window. Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thank you for reading and hope everyone is safe and well.

0 likes, 9 replies

9 Replies

  • louise24797
    louise24797 Guest

    Edited

    Hi Charlotte,

    So sorry to hear you aren't being supported by your GP. I've just started Sertraline just over 3 weeks ago and I also posted about feeling exhausted all the time. I'm on 25mg and I take it at 7 am. My tiredness is beginning to get a bit better but I still don't have my normal energy levels and by 1pm/2pm I go to bed to sleep. I'm able to sleep at night but I do wake up a lot. After 7pm I do feel a bit more awake, and last night I did wonder if I'd fall off to sleep, but it was fine.

    Others on here on a similar dosage to you may be able to offer some better advice. I'm not sure where you live (I'm in the UK), but in my experience you need to be a bit more direct with GPs to get what you want. If you can ask for a telephone call or video call with your GP. And ask why your counsellor won't do sessions over the phone or video call.

    I also got some great advice on here about being kind and patient with yourself as the dosage levels out.

    I hope you manage to get more support and find the dosage level that works for you.

    • Guest
      Guest louise24797

      Edited

      Hi, thank you for the reply 😃

      I'm glad your tiredness is beginning to improve. I feel the same around late afternoon time, I could fall asleep but soon as it gets closer to bed time I feel wide awake.

      It's a shame that the negative side effects can take a while to ease. I feel like these could be the ones that I can stay on for now, it's just the exhaustion that comes with them.

      I'll try a more direct approach with my doctor at my next appointment as well. I don't have a regular one as such as we have new faces all the time and it's hard to find the right one who I feel really understands.

      Thank you for the advice and good luck with your medication. I hope they continue to improve 😃

  • BulldozerMcr
    BulldozerMcr Guest

    Edited

    Hi,

    Sertraline is the slowest antidepressant. It can take 12-15 weeks to kick in or even more if you were on antidepressants before. We need to be extra patient otherwise if we keep changing doses and tablets it can drag the time of suffering out. The clock resets on dose change as well so you need to count the weeks from the time you came down to 100.

    There is a support group on facebook, called Bruno Truth Sertraline Support Group, come and ask the community, there are loads of members with loads of experience with this med.

    Hope it helps

    Regards,

    B.

    • Guest
      Guest BulldozerMcr

      Edited

      Thank you 😃 I didn't know it could take that long. I'll check out that support group too. Thank you for the advice 😃

    • Jane859
      Jane859 BulldozerMcr

      Posted

      hi Bulldozer,

      i'm on week eight of 25mg of sertraline, still get anxious and intrusive thoughts, i was on sertraline a couple years ago. does this mean it will take longer as i was on them before? 12-15 weeks?

      thanks in advance need hope!

    • BulldozerMcr
      BulldozerMcr Jane859

      Posted

      Ive seen many people who needed much more time and higher dose 2nd and 3rd time bit you know everybody is different. I am second time on am SSRI too, 22 weeks in, still anxious.. If I were you I would wait some more weeks and if its not better I would go up to 50mg, 50 is the lowest therapeutic dose anyway. But I am not a doctor you know always best to discuss that with a doc, I can tell only what I would do..

    • c53732
      c53732 Guest

      Posted

      Did you get any joy with the facebook support page? I don't seem to be able to register. Feeling rotten this morning and could do with some reassurance.

    • Jane859
      Jane859 BulldozerMcr

      Posted

      thanks for replying. i was on 50mg but the side effects were so severe i had to go to 25mg. before i was on 150mg but that was really bad!! ill give it a few more weeks and see how it is. thanks

  • sandi77808
    sandi77808 Guest

    Posted

    Is there any way you can have a skype session with your therapist?

    My daughter went through this and also suffered from terrible insomnia but it cleared up when her depression went away, which was around the 12-13 mark.

    Check out this post from this forum, it really helped me when I was caring for my daughter and was a wreck, looking for hope, from a poster named Kate, hopefully it will help you too - and my daughter's journey matched Kate's! Here is her second post with a link to her first:

    Hi everyone,

    For those of you who haven't followed my posts this has been my second time on sertraline and I can finally 13 weeks later say it has worked again 😃

    Check out my first success story post for more detailed information:

    https://patient.info/forums/discuss/13-weeks-on-sertraline-my-success-story--540558

    Both times I have been on this medication it has taken 12-13 weeks to feel better. I was off work for 3 months and have now gone back and have been fine.

    Doctors will say 6-8 weeks but with my experiences I still felt awful then. Please try and stick with it and perservere it is so worth it.

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