I’ve been taking 50mg for about 3 months now. It’s gotten me to a point where my anxiety is quite manageable - though not entirely gone.

Speaking with my therapist today, she suggested I consider upping the dose (after checking with GP) so that my anxiety will be less recurrent, and, in a sense, give my brain a break from expecting it - as a lot of my most recent anxiety has been the fear of being anxious when in situations that have been triggering in the past, rather than anxiety about the situation itself.

How have others found this?

My side effects were sizeable initially, though they have subsided now. My therapist said in her experience increasing the dose wouldn’t take much adjustment, and 100-150 is the more typical therapeutic dose anyway, but I do worry about the side effects returning - especially mental ones. They really messed me up for a while, and I’m only now getting my groove back.

Other side effects have persisted a bit like some ED (more delay than disfunction) but those are less scary than the mental ones.

Hello!

I’ve been taking 50mg of Sertraline for 6 weeks now. It’s been a journey, but thankfully I seem to be at the point where most of the side effects I was enduring (depression, intrusive thoughts, diarrhoea, dry heaving) have subsided. I’ve had a run of good days where anxiety has been really manageable. Things felt like they were on the up!

Last night I had something new though. I struggled to get to sleep, but eventually did. I then had INCREDIBLY vivid nightmares and woke up in the early hours of the morning. I know dreams can be intense so this wasn’t much of a surprise, but as I sat awake trying to calm down, I had something new.

I felt very dizzy, woozy, and like the room was spinning. I knew I was awake but things felt dream like, I could focus - could barely keep my eyes looking at anything, felt disconnected from my environment and self. I stumbled around like I was drunk when I walked to the bathroom. I tried to ground myself a bit by naming things I could sense etc. But my brain was so foggy I really struggled.

Eventually I calmed and fell back asleep, but today I just feel horrible. Completely drained and tired and jittery.

Some googling tells me this isn’t unexpected or impossible as a side effect of the Sertraline, though it could also be something else (I get sleep paralysis fairly regularly) especially since I’m 6 weeks in.

But my question is for people that have experienced this - what do you do? How do you manage it? Just want to be armed for next time.

Bonus info:

30 y/o
50mg for 6 weeks
Taken at night/30 minutes before sleep.
I had mostly been cutting caffeine but yesterday I did have 2 coffees and a full caffeinated Coca Cola in the early evening.

Hello!

I’ve been taking 50mg of Sertraline for 6 weeks now. It’s been a journey, but thankfully I seem to be at the point where most of the side effects I was enduring (depression, intrusive thoughts, diarrhoea, dry heaving) have subsided. I’ve had a run of good days where anxiety has been really manageable. Things felt like they were on the up!

Last night I had something new though. I struggled to get to sleep, but eventually did. I then had INCREDIBLY vivid nightmares and woke up in the early hours of the morning. I know dreams can be intense so this wasn’t much of a surprise, but as I sat awake trying to calm down, I had something new.

I felt very dizzy, woozy, and like the room was spinning. I knew I was awake but things felt dream like, I could focus - could barely keep my eyes looking at anything, felt disconnected from my environment and self. I stumbled around like I was drunk when I walked to the bathroom. I tried to ground myself a bit by naming things I could sense etc. But my brain was so foggy I really struggled.

Eventually I calmed and fell back asleep, but today I just feel horrible. Completely drained and tired and jittery.

Some googling tells me this isn’t unexpected or impossible as a side effect of the Sertraline, though it could also be something else (I get sleep paralysis fairly regularly) especially since I’m 6 weeks in.

But my question is for people that have experienced this - what do you do? How do you manage it? Just want to be armed for next time.

Bonus info:

30 y/o
50mg for 6 weeks
Taken at night/30 minutes before sleep.
I had mostly been cutting caffeine but yesterday I did have 2 coffees and a full caffeinated Coca Cola in the early evening.

Hello!

I’ve been taking 50mg of Sertraline for 6 weeks now. It’s been a journey, but thankfully I seem to be at the point where most of the side effects I was enduring (depression, intrusive thoughts, diarrhoea, dry heaving) have subsided. I’ve had a run of good days where anxiety has been really manageable. Things felt like they were on the up!

Last night I had something new though. I struggled to get to sleep, but eventually did. I then had INCREDIBLY vivid nightmares and woke up in the early hours of the morning. I know dreams can be intense so this wasn’t much of a surprise, but as I sat awake trying to calm down, I had something new.

I felt very dizzy, woozy, and like the room was spinning. I knew I was awake but things felt dream like, I could focus - could barely keep my eyes looking at anything, felt disconnected from my environment and self. I stumbled around like I was drunk when I walked to the bathroom. I tried to ground myself a bit by naming things I could sense etc. But my brain was so foggy I really struggled.

Eventually I calmed and fell back asleep, but today I just feel horrible. Completely drained and tired and jittery.

Some googling tells me this isn’t unexpected or impossible as a side effect of the Sertraline, though it could also be something else (I get sleep paralysis fairly regularly) especially since I’m 6 weeks in.

But my question is for people that have experienced this - what do you do? How do you manage it? Just want to be armed for next time.

Bonus info:

30 y/o
50mg for 6 weeks
Taken at night/30 minutes before sleep.
I had mostly been cutting caffeine but yesterday I did have 2 coffees and a full caffeinated Coca Cola in the early evening.

So I’ve been on sertraline 50mg for 3 weeks now. First couple weeks were tough - had a lot of depression, some suicidal thoughts for the first time in my life, episodes of impending doom etc. I felt like I was going crazy. It was a heavy couple weeks and I considered stopping for a while but was encouraged by my doctor and therapist to stay the course… So I did.

3 weeks in now and things are pretty okay. I feel a bit flat still, but aside from a few small momentary pangs a lot of the depression has subsided and I’ve generally felt fairly stable for the past couple days.

I’m hoping that this means I’m through the worst of it and things won’t get as dark again - but I have a lingering worry that suddenly it’ll come back like an aftershock and throw me even more because I’m not expecting it. It means I’m not relaxing into my more relaxed state as much.

I guess my question is - those that have had similar experiences - did these kinds of side effects gradually fade away like this in quite a linear way, or do they kind of eb and flow as they fade, and should I expect a few small bubbles of depression etc. Over the next few weeks?

Since December last year I started to have panic attacks occasionally. My general level of anxiety was slowly rising, I was burned out, and I began therapy.

About 3 weeks into therapy some family stuff happened relating to some trauma I had from childhood. It was tough and I was definitely activated but thought I’d be solid, as I was in therapy.

I ended up leaving my therapist a couple weeks later - I had a lot of travel anxiety about a trip I was going on, and he did very little to help, would forget things we talked about, and was just generally flakey. This meant the trip was horrific: 8 days of non stop anxiety and panic attacks. I lost count of how many I had. Not to mention physical symptoms too.

When I got back i was mentally and emotionally exhausted. The idea of leaving the house filled me with anxiety. I went to my GP for Propranolol, and was given a tiny dose (10mg) to take as needed. It did very little.

I started with a new therapist who has been great so far. But after another quite heavy trip (though not AS bad) I went back to the gp and was given 50mg Sertraline.

I took it in the morning at first. The first 3 days were the most anxious I’d been since Egypt. I had intrusive thoughts, couldn’t focus, headaches and a lot of IBS (which was especially not ideal as my anxiety is already quite bathroom related). My appetite was gone and I was dry heaving a lot too. Plus I was noticing some side effects in the bedroom as well. I barely left the house except to force some steps in the evening.

Days 4 and 5 were slightly better. By the afternoon I’d feel relatively clear, though not completely. Managed a gentle gym session on day 5 even. I decided to swap to taking it in evenings on Day 6, so I’d potentially sleep through the worst.

But on Day 6, when I didn’t take it in the morning, I felt better than I have for ages. Clear all day. Productive at work. Happy. And HUNGRY. It was great. Really my only slight anxiety was about if this feeling would pass - and it didn’t. I did some parasympathetic breathing throughout the day to be safe. Even managed to do some spontaneous trips out to shops etc.

I took my pill at night on day 6 and now it’s day 7. I slept well and don’t feel as nauseous today as I did on days 1-5, but I still feel quite anxious again. Not as bad as before but it’s definitely there. Headaches are humming away again as well. Appetite is better but not normal.

I know these pills take some adjustment but im at a point now where I’m wondering whether to continue or not.

My thinking is really : if without it I can average a 6/10 day and build from there in talk therapy and with propranolol (maybe a higher dose) to a better place, is that better than potentially 4-6 weeks of averaging 3-4/10 and feeling all those additional side effects.

I’m going to talk to my therapist tomorrow as well, but curious to hear of other people’s experiences. I know the internet is disproportionately full of horror stories with SSRIs, so looking for more balanced views and regular experiences.

TLDR: Struggling to decide if the short term downsides of Sertraline are worth potential long term upsides, or if it’s better to build alone with talk therapy and panic meds.