Taking Zoloft 25mg for anxiety, can someone please give me advice?

Posted , 5 users are following.

I've been taking Zoloft 25mg for generalized anxiety and for 3 days so far and I've had these side effects - heart palpations/flutters, heightened anxiety, jitterness/shakiness, some nausea, some chest pain, diarreha; not too bad yet, hunger, and strange dreams.

I seriously want to give up already and stop taking Zoloft but everyone here keeps telling me to push through it.

I know I shouldn't be doing it but I'm a pretty big hypochondriac and I looked Zoloft up to see if it caused heart problems and many things came up for cardiac arrest and that's when I started to worry. My doctor told me to eventually take 50mg of Zoloft and I saw that cardiac arrest can happen around that dosage. I have a family history of high blood pressure and at some point my father told me he developed heart problems. I had an irregular heartbeat ever since I was a child but multiple EKGs showed that my heart was perfectly healthy.

I am naturally underweight and have a history of low blood pressure but my psychiatrist still prescribed the medication. I'm also 21 years old. Should I be worried at all about the side effects and cardiac arrest? I'm worried about it and taking the 50mg, I just want to stick to the 25mg.

0 likes, 9 replies

9 Replies

  • Posted

    Hi catalonia.

    Iv Been on sertraline 25mg for 10 days now. I to have had or having the

    Symptoms you describe. Iv proberbly had 4 good days out of the 10.

    Today's not been a good day, heart palputations, Anxiety levels are up,

    crying. But with all the kind responses on the forum.

    They all say sick with it it's early days.

    The good days will out weigh the bad soon

    It may take 6 weeks for us to feel the benifits but I'm going to try and

    stick it out. I'm not going to up my dose until I see if 25mg works for me

    first, They have to risk all the side effects,

    Talk to your GP about your concerns,

    • Posted

      Sorry spelt your name wrong

      Wishing you well

    • Posted

      Hi Julie! It's okay. Thank you so much for your response, it makes me feel so good to know that I'm not alone on this. I can kind of deal with the side effects, I do feel like giving up sometimes because they tend to get worse in the morning as soon as I get up. I've been feeling so tired and weak. I took Paxil before and had the worst side effects you could ever experience, after 6 weeks or so I stopped taking it and my anxiety subsided for a good year but returned full force but if I can make it through the side effects of Paxil, I can make it through this.

      We can make it through this together. When we want to give up, all we have to do is remember why we started in the first place and try our best to stay strong. I'm sorry you're going through a rough time as well but you can do this ?

      I think I'm going to stick to the 25mg as well and see if it works for me. It scares me too, upping my dosage. The side effects for 25mg is bad enough, 50mg would probably be worse.

    • Posted

      Hi Catalina, Hi Julie

      were in this together so don't feel you're on your own. Try and stay strong and work through the side effects.  Hopefully Hingis will settle down and I'm sure th increased dose will be fine as your body will be used to the meds by then. I started on 50 then 100 and maybe will go up again in the near future. If it helps then I'm willing to give it a go. Want to get back to being me again!   All, the best to you xx

    • Posted

      Hi there Maureen! I appreciate your response and thank you for the reassurance that everything will be fine. See, since I'm such a thin person the medicine doesn't take that long to get into my system and the side effects are a little bit stronger. I'm just worried that something bad will happen to me or my heart but if you say it will be okay then I will believe that.

    • Posted

      Hi Maureen.

      How do you do private messages on here.

      Just in case I want to have a chat with you, xx

    • Posted

      I think you'll be ok.  If you've any worries then pop into your pharmacy and ask them.  They'll be able to give you some reassurance about whether or not it'll suit you. Xx

    • Posted

      i think if you click on my name it might give you the option to private message xx
    • Posted

      Hi Catalina, sorry your feeling bad. I'm currently on sertaline been on it for about 7weeks now and the start wasn't very nice. Had bad side effects like what your experiencing it will get better just take each day as it comes. My doctor said it would get worse before getting better and it did but you will start to get good days just stay positive xxx

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