Sertraline finally destroyed my stomach - the belching horror!

Hey!

After I took a dose of sertraline just with water on an empty stomach, I immediately felt like a balloon being pumped up in my upper belly and I started burping. Stopped the medication just there, had a hollow pain and a burning sensation for like two weeks, then I added a lot of burping to the symtom list. Now, 7 weeks after that incident, especially that belching drives me crazy, doesnt matter what I eat or if I eat at all - even have to burp after trinking a sip of silent water. Constantly having this pressure in the stomach, which goes up to the throat. Then I feel like I need to burp and I cant for some seconds, having the air trapped in the epigastric region, I stretch and wait and a big rumble goes through my upper stomach and I finally can release the air through my mouth

Ofc if I eat much, the burps arent just "air burps" but filled with a little stomach content. It feels like my stomach is cramping up.

Endoscopy findings were clear - no gastritis or anything. I never had problems with my stomach before.

I know that one single pill wont mess up your stomach this much. I took sertraline in 2016 for one year (top dose 100mg) mostly on an empty stomach and was good. 2017 without medication, started this mid-year on a low dose 25mg for some weeks and was fine as long as I had a meal before taking it. Happened already once in june, that I missed lunch, took the tablet without food and ended up with 2 weeks stomach issues. Was fine again, until I decided to take a 12,5mg dose to alleviate the withdrawal symptoms (since I stopped right when it hit my stomach): there comes the recent incident, that wasnt even on a empty stomach (would have been just dumb to make the same error twice) but I apparently havent had enough food in me (you can actually feel the food "cushioning" the described effects).

So you can say it somehow cumulated ending with my stomach being (like it feels) destroyed forever.

My concerns/questions are the following:

1. Someone here, who can relate to this? [especially adressing those who took sertraline/zoloft for a longer time and on an empty stomach too]

2. I know the typical gastrointestinal side effects like diarrhoe and such. This is different, since it is an immediate reaction to a drug, more like to its filler ingredients perhaps, since the active substance gets absorbed later in the small intestine. Anyone having any theories for that?

3. Any pros here, who can hypothesize whats going on, when a tablet makes you burp? Does it miraculous generate air or..? Why does it make a difference if taken with food or not - whats the effect here? [also referring to numerous reports of people, who experienced the same after taking a pill w/out food]

As said before, I am no longer on sertraline - wont take it again. It's crystal clear, that it was the drug, who caused this, since it happened twice and directly after the intake. I am pretty devastated, that my stomach wont recover, since it already dodged so many hits and that lost one, was one to many.

I hope you could read through that and I greatly appreciate any input from you guys!

Please forbear with me, since I am no native speaker.

Thanks much!!

0 likes, 6 replies