I started to take myself off my medication after being on it for 11 months last month since Friday I have had anxiety and repeative thoughts that wont go away. I have spoken to the doctor and started uo with 50mg the thing is last time I was much worse than I am now yet I am worried as we all know sertraline makes you worse before you get better, I am mentally stronger as last time I had just given birth to my daughter my question is has anyone had to restart the medication and if so will I get the horrendus two weeks of panic I got last time, I am back at work now and we are going through redundancies so the last thing I want to do is go off again.
If you re starting to reduce your dose, do it veeeery slowly. Over the years I've tried to get off Zoloft three time, only once successfully. The withdrawal can be hell. So from 50 mg I reduced to 25 mg for three months then 25 every other day for another three months. Then I went off. Doing it more slowly eliminates the brain zaps you can get withdrawing. But the anxiety, bad thoughts and panic were horrendous. Ugh these drugs! I think doctors have NO idea how hard it is to get off. Took me 3 1/2 months to stop all that and feel normal. Eight months later I am 100% fine. Take it slow and you WILL be better.
Maybe if you start these up again don't go to 50mg right away. Maybe now that you're mentally stronger you can try and stick with the 25mg? Side effects won't be as intension that way either.
That's a really good idea and one I hadn't thought of at all! Thank you
Hi, will help you to reinstate on a small dose then once you've stabilised you can rethink you're strategy for coming off them altogether.
the recommendation is to reduce by 10% for a month at a time, please look under the page 'sertraline withdrawal does it go away'. Lots of great informed and researched advice on tapering to avoid the nasty withdrawals
all the best