hello lovely souls of this site, I've decided to come of zoloft 50mg and just thought this was a nice network to keep some sanity. I've been on zoloft for nearly 8 months and decided to stop taking it. My doctor advised to go cold turkey since weening of just keeps the zoloft in my body. Has anyone successfully gone cold turkey with zoloft? I've read some scary stuff were it was good for a couple of months and then disaster.
Always was told to never to stop cold turkey! However my GP had me do it to once! Did not know if the side effects I experience were from the new drug introduced or the old one in my system! Think weaning down is better!
hi julianna, i have been on most of the ssri meds in the past, including sertraline which i was on a few years ago but then stopped (im back on them now though), and on stopping any of them, there have been withdrawal effects. with some of the meds i tapered off slowly, and and with others i stopped cold turkey. from my own personal experience it has always been worse stopping suddenly, rather than tapering off slowly. personally, i will never stop an ssri med cold turkey again, as it can be a very rough ride. there really is no reason not to simply play it safe, and come off the meds slowly, rather than risk potentially quite intense withdrawal effects.
To avoid protracted withdrawals the advice is to taper 10% of the tablet each month. I did this over 7 months after being on 50mg of it for two years and avoided all the nasty withdrawal effects.
i used a pill cutter until I got down to a sewing pin head size then stopped, some people opt for the liquid form and use a 10ml syringe.
so it's 10% off 50mg for a month then 10% of what's left and so on. A month is the average time for your nervous system to stabilise after the cut. You will see lots of detailed advice regarding this tried and trusted method,
Good Luck
also julianna, dont forget that with most antidepressants, in the leaflet which comes in the box, it does say not to stop abruptly, due to the risk of having difficult withdrawal effects from doing so
i have to be honest, if my doctor told me to stop an antidepressant abruptly, i wouldn't want any more advice from him or her, and i would switch to a different doctor.
I was on Zoloft for many years, and finally had enough of being dependent on a pill. I was feeling good, so of course I would think they weren't needed. I thought I could handle everything myself, so I quit taking Zoloft cold turkey. That was a huge mistake, and the withdrawal symptoms made hell look like a walk in the park.
I've honestly never heard a doctor tell anyone to just stop an antidepressant cold turkey, and that's primarily because it's very dangerous to do that. I was stupid for doing it that way, but very lucky that nothing horrible happened. Personally, I think tapering is the best way to go, especially for safety reasons, but that's just my opinion.
Good luck, and be safe.
Don't ever go cold turkey the side effects can be dangerous! You have to slowly take yourself off it Hun you'll become really ill otherwise take it from my experiences I was bed bound for 3 weeks after stopping my anxiety meds the side effects were horrendous ❤️
Thank-you so much for the adive Wilb, a-new-day, Tezes, psyched out and chelsea057, it means a lot! I went to another doctor today after horrendous withdrawal symptoms and she said I wasn't strong enough yet to go off it, and when I will be more ready to come see her again and ween off more slowly. Thank-you again to you all, it means a lot