Sertraline

[Darkhaven]

Hey everyone.
I hope you are all well (as well as can be expected for a person who is planning to suicide as most of us are).
I would like to know if some of you have had any experience with Sertraline as an antidepressant in treating Major Depressive Disorder, anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder type of thing.
Did it help you stay more calm in tense social interactions and stay more positive or nope?
I have heard some people on reddit saying that it completely changed their lives and "killed" their anxiety and depression as soon as it reached the max effect of the meds (generally 4 weeks, i think), while some people say that the side effects were intolerable and gave up.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Pj.nuffield]

I was on 200mg for about 6 months & it kinda helped but only a little. I'm now on venlafaxine (225mg) & feel a lot better.
It's funny because I've read bad things about venlafaxine but hey

 

[Tabbyql]

Hey everyone.
I hope you are all well (as well as can be expected for a person who is planning to suicide as most of us are).
I would like to know if some of you have had any experience with Sertraline as an antidepressant in treating Major Depressive Disorder, anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder type of thing.
Did it help you stay more calm in tense social interactions and stay more positive or nope?
I have heard some people on reddit saying that it completely changed their lives and "killed" their anxiety and depression as soon as it reached the max effect of the meds (generally 4 weeks, i think), while some people say that the side effects were intolerable and gave up.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hope u are well too. I was lucky not really any side effects, and to be honest it didn't help me much at all in regards to the things you mentioned. Still couldnt go out or be around human's. But it did help my OCD, and even though it didn't stop the suicidal thoughts, I didn't feel like doing anything about them. And a little sense of hope that maybe il be ok. I stupidly went cold turkey on them, awful electric type shock/zaps through my body for weeks. Its worth a try.
Edit- when I say it's worth a try I meant the medication, not the going cold turkey lol. Don't do that.

 

[GeorgeJL]

Hey everyone.
I hope you are all well (as well as can be expected for a person who is planning to suicide as most of us are).
I would like to know if some of you have had any experience with Sertraline as an antidepressant in treating Major Depressive Disorder, anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder type of thing.
Did it help you stay more calm in tense social interactions and stay more positive or nope?
I have heard some people on reddit saying that it completely changed their lives and "killed" their anxiety and depression as soon as it reached the max effect of the meds (generally 4 weeks, i think), while some people say that the side effects were intolerable and gave up.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I have greatly benefited from medications in general, including SSRI's like sertraline. I would be dead without them.

 

[vanillapeanut]

I was one of the few to have a bad experience with Sertraline. It made me really manic and I had to come off it pretty quickly. But that's definitely a minority experience, most other people I've heard about seem to get on with it pretty well. Hope it works for you.

 

[Walilamdzi]

My friend said it wasn't helping her, but she had just started taking it.

 

[No Future]

My partner was on suicide watch. Since then, she started taking 100mg of Sertraline and it has changed her life. She's now able to function incredibly well, but recognizes that she is dependent on it. She's been taking it daily for 2 years. The benefits make it worth it for her, though.

It needs to be said that there's no 'one-size-fits-all' antidepressant. What works for one, may not work for another. They're also rough on your psyche for the first couple of weeks. They don't act immediately, so don't expect them to.

It's worth trying, but if you're not getting results in 2-3 weeks, consider switching to another SSRI if viable.

 

[The Whale]

I had sertraline and it only helped me to deal with my social anxiety. I didn't have side effects. Just remember that medications affect every person differently.

 

[beatenghost]

Everyone reacts differently. Someone could say here it didn't work for them and then you decide not to try it, when it could be the perfect one for you. Speak to your doctor about it

 

[Egddios]

Currently prescribed 100mg of sertraline aka Zoloft and it's unfortunately not working for me. I almost feel jittery on it, like some volume dial has been cranked up full blast if that makes any sense. The black box warning on all antidepressants warn of an increase in suicidal thoughts, which has been happening to me since I started taking Zoloft about a month and a half ago. I mean, I'm planning to end my life by the end of August, but this feeling of intense jitters and disturbing dreams is making me feel more awful than usual. I have started to taper down and I'm now taking 50mg; I see my psychiatrist on Friday to discuss this issue, and I'm curious what antidepressant he's going to try on me next.

For the record, I've tried Effexor (gave me intolerable brain zaps), Cymbalta (caused me to swell and break out in a rash), Prozac (no ill effects from it), and now Zoloft. I also had 9 ECT treatments in 2017 which, maybe more treatments would help me? With ECT, it's recommended to have maintainence treatments.

All this said, Klonopin has helped me the most. 1mg in the morning, 1mg or half an mg in the afternoon, and 1mg at night. I have PTSD/MDD/panic disorder and am in "remission" from bulimia and anorexia.

 

[Funkbunny]

10 years on it, the least side effects I experienced. I was on 200 mg for about 4 years, recently moved over to citalopram.

 

[Darkhaven]

10 years on it, the least side effects I experienced. I was on 200 mg for about 4 years, recently moved over to citalopram.

So i presume it has been helping you??

 

[Jon86]

About the same as all other ssri's i've taken which is reduced anxiety. However, I also get sexual side effects with all ssri's, ie. weaker erections and anorgasm (hard to cum). At the end of the day, I was just depressed as always, the reduced anxiety made me more apathetic. Drugs, don't seem to work for me, probably because my life is horrible and anyone in my circumstances would want to die.

 

[Jen Erik]

I have diagnoses of MDD, GAD, and PTSD; I found that sertraline had no effect on my symptoms related to those conditions. But, to be fair, I stopped taking it at 100mg because I couldn't tolerate the side effects, so it could have been that the therapeutic dose was beyond that for me.

 

[CTB-London]

I've taken a few SSRIs including Sertraline but they had a minimal impact. I live in a state of permanent situational depression so it's state of life over state of mind.

My feeling is that anti-depressants only really help those who have a chemical imbalance in the brain.

 

[Funkbunny]

So i presume it has been helping you??

It certainly did. I just think after so long on it, it started to loose the benefit so I changed. Never had a problem with sertraline.

 

[tiggles2000]

I was on sertraline and yes, it did help. I was cleared of depression and taken off of it about 6 years ago.

I am now on it again, and when I remember to take it (which is rare, maybe once in a week) it helps even then.

 

[EmptySteph62]

I was taking Sertraline at 200mg for around 7ish months and only had a couple side effects in the first 2 weeks. I was dizzy and nauseous. Unfortunately after 7 months it wasn't helping me at all and didn't really make any difference.
I tried Fluoxetine and had incredibly bad side effects almost immediately and it increased my suicide thoughts to the point that I was hospitalized for a few days.
Now I'm on cipralex and it has been helping a ton. I really think it's just different for everyone and I hope Sertraline works for you.

 

[Etherealdignity333]

It's the strangest thing. I took it a few times in the past, and it always made me feel like a completely different person (in a good way) when it kicked in. No anxiety, upbeat demeanor.

This time, I started back on it, and ended up here.

 

[MAIO]

Hey everyone.
I hope you are all well (as well as can be expected for a person who is planning to suicide as most of us are).
I would like to know if some of you have had any experience with Sertraline as an antidepressant in treating Major Depressive Disorder, anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder type of thing.
Did it help you stay more calm in tense social interactions and stay more positive or nope?
I have heard some people on reddit saying that it completely changed their lives and "killed" their anxiety and depression as soon as it reached the max effect of the meds (generally 4 weeks, i think), while some people say that the side effects were intolerable and gave up.

Thanks in advance for your help.

There is a lot of academic debate around the efficacy of antidepressants. At best antidepressants rival the efficiency of treatment options like exercise and talk therapy for most conditions. At worse, they are no better than a placebo for most conditions. Regardless a placebo has the most significant portion of the effect on the treatment option of most depressive and anxiety disorders. Ie what most important is you believe in will work, change your behaviors if you know how, maybe through scapegoatig your issues onto a mental disorder which gives your permission to get better and move on(the same tactic some modern religions like Christianity use) etc. There are a few career aspects taking antidepressants negatively effect such as possibly preventing you from joining the military, becoming a cop, air traffic controller, security clearance and so on. Hope that makes sense.

 

[FullCircle]

I was on 200mg for about 6 months & it kinda helped but only a little. I'm now on venlafaxine (225mg) & feel a lot better.
It's funny because I've read bad things about venlafaxine but hey

I'm on the same dose of venlafaxine as well as buspar and Seroquel for sleep. Venlafaxine makes me tired as shit but it's the only thing that's helped so far. Sertraline didn't do much of anything for me.