​

I'm 28M and currently switching from Lexapro to Zoloft. I'm looking for experiences from people who had severe physical anxiety and stomach symptoms during an SSRI startup or switch, especially people who eventually recovered and got their normal appetite back.

The main problem I'm dealing with is a strange combination of:

Constant stomach tension

Nausea

Almost no appetite

Food aversion

Gagging/dry heaving

Difficulty getting food down even when I know I'm hungry

Increased physical anxiety

The mornings are by far the worst.

I wake up and almost immediately feel tension in my stomach. Food sounds disgusting, I feel nauseous, and sometimes I'll gag or dry heave even though I haven't taken my medication yet and my stomach is basically empty.

Then I start worrying about whether I'll be able to eat, and it feels like everything feeds itself:

anxiety -> stomach tightens -> nausea -> can't eat -> empty stomach -> worse nausea -> gagging/dry heaving -> more anxiety

The weirdest part is what happens later in the day.

As the day progresses, everything gradually settles down. By evening or nighttime my stomach can feel dramatically different. The tension decreases, my anxiety drops, food becomes normal again and sometimes I can eat a completely normal meal.

Then I sleep and wake up the next morning with the same symptoms again.

My medication transition has been pretty messy, which makes it difficult to know where the startup effects end and everything else begins.

I was on Lexapro 20mg for about a year. Starting Lexapro originally gave me basically zero side effects, and I lived completely normally on it. Eventually my panic attacks started returning, so my psychiatrist decided to switch me to Zoloft.

The first attempt was:

Lexapro 20mg -> 10mg + Zoloft 50mg

Within days I developed severe nausea, vomiting, dizziness, brain zaps and dramatically increased anxiety.

Around day 4 I contacted my psychiatrist because I could barely tolerate 50mg and was told to increase Zoloft to 100mg.

I didn't increase it.

By day 5 I ended up in the ER because of the vomiting, stopped Zoloft and changed psychiatrists.

After roughly two days without Zoloft, my new psychiatrist stopped Lexapro completely and restarted Zoloft much more slowly.

My current uninterrupted restart has been:

12.5mg for 7 days

25mg for 6 days

50mg, currently day 2

So right now I'm 14 days into the uninterrupted Zoloft restart, day 2 at 50mg, and day 14 completely off Lexapro.

My psychiatrist also started a short 10-day Xanax bridge two days ago while I adjust to 50mg. I'm taking 0.25mg with my Zoloft and another 0.25mg later in the day.

One thing that makes me suspect anxiety is perpetuating at least some of the stomach symptoms is that I've taken Seroquel 50mg nightly for years.

Once it kicks in and I relax, my stomach tension can almost completely disappear. I stop worrying about food and can sometimes eat normally after struggling to eat all day.

The same thing seems to happen when my daytime anxiety decreases.

So I'm wondering whether the SSRI transition/startup increased my physical anxiety enough to restart an old anxiety-stomach loop.

I did also have what seemed like a separate stomach bug during this period after eating questionable food, with diarrhea and vomiting for several days. Bloodwork was normal twice. However, the nausea, food aversion and difficulty eating had already started before the stomach illness, and they've continued after the worst of it passed.

I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who experienced something similar while starting, stopping or switching SSRIs, not necessarily Zoloft specifically.

Did anxiety make your stomach feel physically locked up to the point where you couldn't eat?

Did you experience nausea, gagging or dry heaving, especially in the mornings?

Did you feel significantly better at night?

And most importantly, did your normal appetite and ability to eat eventually come back once your body adjusted to the medication? How long did it take?

I'm following my psychiatrist's treatment plan, so I'm not looking for advice on changing medications or doses.

I mainly want to know whether anyone else went through this horrible "my anxiety has taken control of my stomach and I can't fucking eat" phase during an SSRI transition and eventually came out the other side.

hi all! i have been on sertraline for about a month now, previously being on Pristiq and have only recently realized that my severe night sweats started when i started Pristiq. this really disrupts my sleep as i will wake up at ungodly times drenched and freezing as if i had walked into a shower with my clothes on. when switching over to sertraline i was prescribed 0.5 clonezepam to help with panic attacks i may have while adjusting. every time i have a panic attack and take one i notice i dont sweat at all. obviously i dont want to use these long term as i dont want to become addicted. on the other hand i have heard about vitamin e working to stop night sweats also, but doing further research it seems that vitamin e in the long term really effects the heart/risk of stroke. i really dont know what to do as it's really disruptive to my sleep

To make a long story short, I don’t have consistent and reliable health insurance, meaning I don’t know how I’m gonna keep getting my medications each month. Because of this, I’ve started tapering on my own. I know it’s not the best option, but it is what it is & this is where life has taken me.

I started from 150mg, went down to 100, then 75, then 50. All that went surprisingly smooth. However, I’m starting to have a LOT of issues coming down to 25mg and am extremely scared for when I try to stop completely. Does anyone have any tips for coming off on your own, any supplements that have helped, or any general advice? Much appreciate :’)

I am starting serteralin after months of anxiety and rumination. I have also started working out 3 months ago and so far it has been the only thing helping me with my anxiety. I love the way I feel after a workout but obviously exercise can’t solve all of my problems.
People who workout on SSRIs, how have SSRIs impacted your workout routine? Is the weight gain annoying? Do you feel less or more motivated to workout? Has your energy level changed?

I think around 6 months ago or more (not good with time) i lost the ability to orgasm.
It’s an annoying side effect but i don’t want to change my medication type. Bupropion is the only anti depressant that has worked well with minimal side effects.
there have been a handful of side effects but one of the most noticeable is my incapability to orgasm.
it can get frustrating at times, but i just haven’t been able to.
Is there any way i could possibly orgasm again or is it a lost cause? if i can will it just randomly come back or is there a way i can promote it happening?

I’m 25F and I don’t even have a boyfriend atm but I’ve been on lexapro for 2 years and I realized I never really thought about this. Does lexapro or SSRI’s in general have any data that it might affect your child developmentally before or during pregnancy? I know ultimately myself, I would be the priority and i shouldn’t NOT take medicine for the sake of a child that I don’t even know if I’ll have but it does concern me a little.

I remember in university my psych professor told us that she took antidepressants during her pregnancy and it’s much more common now, but that they do test the child for withdrawal symptoms or smth at birth?