I was on 50mg Zoloft/sertraline for around a year.
Tapered to 25mg daily for a month, then 25mg every other day for 2 weeks, then every 3–4 days for another 2 weeks before stopping completely. (Instructed by my psychiatrist)

The first week off was actually fine, but during the second week the withdrawal symptoms started hitting me pretty hard.

I’ve been getting:
- Brain zaps and tingling sensations throughout the day
- Vertigo/dizziness
- Nausea, stomachaches and diarrhea
- Body aches
- Really bad irritability/mood swings
- Trouble sleeping and waking up during the night
- Random waves of extreme tiredness where I fall into a really deep sleep and wake up feeling awful

The irritability is especially intense and I feel physically hot when I get really angry.

According to chat, alternate days during a taper can sometimes cause bigger fluctuations in medication levels and potentially make withdrawal symptoms worse…

How long did it take before I will start feeling normal again?😭 I am so tempted to start taking it again just to make all these go away because it’s affecting my work and the people around me.

2 days ago i took 1000mgs of sertraline (my normal dose is 150) and ive felt ill. i was throwing up all of yesterday, cant keep anything down, i havent slept at all (even wfter melatonin), ive been shaking and anxious and seeing things and im so scared

how can i stop these symptoms and like get better again. im so exhausted and scared and i cant tell anyone irl because ill get sectioned

I started sertraline two days ago and my anxiety is over the roof, I’m scared of getting out of bed in the morning. Please replies just with positive comments 🙏🏼

Just a question, I havent started zoloft yet but am going to. I'm a nurse and I do shift work, they say you should take it the same time everyday however what am I supposed to do on night shift? Has anybody else had this issue? I also take vyvanse in the morning

100mg of antidepressants turned me into a whole different person,full of positivity, energy, and zero social anxiety. Sometimes I remember my dark past: 7 to 8 years of no sleep, endless overthinking, zero confidence, and being unable to talk to girls.

My problems started around age 14 due to a very specific issue that I spent 4–5 years trying to fix without success. Spending every waking minute trying to solve it turned me into a zombie. I was working 8 hours a day with only that single thought in my head, faking everything: my smiles, my anger, my confidence. At the end of the day, I would always crash back into my real self, especially at night.

It became a vicious cycle I couldn't break. I was skipping school, spending all my time alone, and constantly searching the internet for answers or discussing the issue with people going through the same thing. That's all my days consisted of. When COVID hit, everyone automatically passed the school year; if it hadn't been for that, I would have had 114 absences by the end of March just because I was terrified to go in for that specific reason.

For 7 long years, my life was full of misery, daily stress, and fake happiness. The worst part was that I didn't share it with anyone,not even my family.Because I convinced myself they would think I was crazy if I tried to explain it.

I finally built up the courage to see a psychiatrist and open up. I don't want to get into the exact details because it ruined my life from ages 13 to 20 and brings back painful flashbacks, but it really felt like an unbreakable cycle with no solution.

After talking to my psychiatrist, he immediately prescribed Zoloft (SSRI treatment). I'm now in my 3rd month and I can actually live life now. Like, man, I finally made it.

People shouldn't be scared to ask for help. After struggling for 8 years with extreme OCD and anxiety, it's all gone now. It's actually mind-blowing to see my true self.I can't believe I'm the same person.

You can ask me any questions and i'll try to answer them all!

hello I’ve been on 100mg Zoloft for 10 years or so and recently had horrible increase in anxiety that wasn’t helped by increasing the dose so my psychiatrist is adding Wellbutrin. I’ve been experiencing depression, anxiety, and just my mind racing and worrying a lot. looking for positive stories with this combo.

I’ve been on Zoloft for about 2 years, and while it has significantly improved my mental health, I’ve gained easily 40 lbs that is so stubborn. I was already slightly overweight, although I wasn’t worried about it really and my weight had been steady. Now I feel like I NEED to lose some weight in order to do the things I love (playing with my kids, riding bikes, etc).

I’m curious what has worked for you all?

hi! I have BPD and I’ve been taking Brintellix (vortioxetine) since February. I’ve been on a 20 mg dose since May and haven’t noticed any side effects other than feeling detached (like being behind a wall) and a blunting of my emotions. However, my anxiety returned two months ago. On the positive side, the medication has quieted my aggression, and my libido returned to normal after I stopped taking birth control.
My doctor recommended tapering off Brintellix while starting Zoloft at the same time. I’m really terrified of Zoloft's potential side effects—especially regarding weight gain and libido—because those could drastically affect my mental well-being. Additionally, I have very important exams this year and need focus, energy, motivation, and calmness, which Brintellix isn't really providing right now.
I’m currently in DBT therapy, which has definitely helped me with many aspects of my disorder. Still, I’m extremely scared of switching medications due to these side effects. I should also mention that I have SIBO and IMO, which I’m currently treating with antibiotics. I know Zoloft affects serotonin, which is largely processed in the gut, so I'm wondering if that might actually help my digestion.

i’ve been prescribed to zoloft for about a month now and have an upcoming doctors appointment to assess how it’s been going for me to see if i need to change my dosage. i’m taking it for depression and mild anxiety, but i don’t know if it’s working. on my days off, i find myself sleeping and unable to get out of bed. the only time i can motivate myself to function is if i smoke weed. it gives me an appetite and helps me do the chores around my apartment. otherwise i’m not eating and not cleaning. i feel like my symptoms may have possibly gotten worse, but i also can’t tell if im making that up. i’m scared to be on a higher dose if i don’t need it.

What time of day do you take Zoloft/sertraline? And why do you take it at that particular time? Have you changed the time since you started taking it?

I simply can’t figure out what time of day works best for me if I want it to have a positive effect on my sleep. Before starting sertraline, I slept extremely poorly and woke up many times during the night.

In the beginning, when I was on 25 mg, I had three nights in a row where I slept through the entire night without waking up. It was SO magical to experience sleeping through the night!!!! I looked 10 years younger, had so much energy, and felt amazing.
Unfortunately, my sleep has been terrible again every single night for the past 8 weeks.

At first, I took sertraline in the evening, but it didn’t help my sleep. I’m now taking it at 4:00 PM, but I’m still sleeping badly. Has anyone experienced something similar and found a “sweet spot” for taking sertraline that helped improve their sleep?

I’ve been taking sertraline for a little over 9 weeks: 1 week at 25 mg, 1 week at 50 mg, 3 weeks at 75 mg, and now 4 weeks at 100 mg, which is the dose I expect to stay on.

I’m taking sertraline for an adjustment disorder/stress reaction, anxiety, stress, and intrusive thoughts/OCD.

Someone tell me the side effects will stop😭 long story short I’m 22 years old and almost 4 months postpartum dealing with severe postpartum anxiety, yesterday my doctor put me on 50mg of Zoloft and 5 mg buspirone as needed. My anxious thoughts have already calmed down but the side effects are so intense. Yesterday I had watery diarrhea which has since subsided, last night I could not fall asleep until 4 am and I woke up feeling like I got shitfaced, just feeling so dizzy and nauseous like being hungover. It’s so hard feeling sick like this from the side effects and trying to take care of my baby at the same time. Please tell me your experiences and give me some words of encouragement.

I started Zoloft (again) almost two weeks ago and I find that most days, I feel like I might throw up. I feel it pretty specifically in my stomach and sometimes it just hurts. I understand that this can be a side effect but is there anything I can do?

I went from 200mg to 100mg and i am not necessarily trying to quit but i want to know if reducing my dosage would help me regulate my weight.

I kind of didnt have satiety cues anymor and could just eat until i was litterally about to vomit. I also had intense craving in the evenings.

It seems to have work and i kind of eat less overall since reducing my dosage (roughly 4 weeks).

But i would like to know if reducing helped people with weight regulation or should i try to quit or switch to another molecule?

I'm 28M and currently going through a pretty rough Zoloft startup. The hardest part isn't even the mental anxiety itself anymore. It's what the anxiety seems to be doing to my stomach and my ability to eat.

I'm dealing with nausea, almost no appetite, food aversion, a constantly tense stomach, gagging and dry heaving, and it's making eating incredibly difficult.

The mornings are by far the worst.

I wake up and almost immediately my stomach feels tight and uncomfortable. I feel nauseous, food sounds disgusting, and sometimes I start gagging or dry heaving even though my stomach is basically empty.

Then I start thinking about whether I'll be able to eat, which increases my anxiety, which seems to make my stomach tighten even more.

It feels like I'm stuck in a loop:

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

What's strange is that this usually gets significantly better as the day goes on.

By evening or nighttime, my stomach often relaxes, my anxiety comes down, food stops feeling threatening or disgusting, and I can suddenly eat much more normally.

Sometimes by nighttime I feel almost like myself again.

Then I sleep, wake up the next morning, and the whole thing starts over.

For some context, my medication transition has been a little messy.

I was previously on Lexapro 20mg for about a year. I had basically zero startup side effects from Lexapro and lived normally on it, but my panic attacks eventually started returning.

My first psychiatrist reduced Lexapro to 10mg and started me directly on Zoloft 50mg.

That first attempt was brutal. I developed severe nausea, vomiting, dizziness, brain zaps and massively increased anxiety. Around day 4 I contacted my psychiatrist because I could barely tolerate it and was told to increase Zoloft from 50mg to 100mg.

I didn't increase it because I was already struggling badly at 50mg.

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

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

Also, i started use xanax since yesterday. I took it at morning after breakfeast. I took zoloft and xanax at the same time

So I'm currently 14 days into the uninterrupted restart, 2 days into 50mg, and 14 days completely off Lexapro.

I also unfortunately had what seemed to be a separate stomach bug during this period after some questionable food, with several days of diarrhea and vomiting. That has made it difficult to know exactly what caused what. I've had bloodwork done twice and everything was normal.

But the food aversion, nausea and difficulty eating had already started before that stomach illness, and those symptoms have continued even after the worst of it passed.

Another reason I suspect anxiety is playing a big role is my nightly Seroquel 50mg, which I've taken for years.

Once it kicks in and my anxiety drops, the tension in my stomach can almost completely disappear.

Suddenly food doesn't bother me. I stop thinking about whether I can eat. I can sometimes eat a completely normal meal at night after struggling to get food down earlier that same day.

My psychiatrist has now also prescribed a short 10-day Xanax bridge while I adjust to 50mg Zoloft.

I'm currently on day 2. I take 0.25mg Xanax together with my Zoloft and another 0.25mg later in the day.

It's obviously way too early to judge anything after two days, but when the anxiety settles down, my stomach and ability to eat seem to improve dramatically too.

That's really the part I'm trying to understand.

Did anyone else get increased anxiety on Zoloft that manifested mainly through their stomach?

Especially:

nausea, inability to eat, food aversion, stomach tension, gagging or dry heaving?

And was it particularly horrible after waking up but much better by nighttime?

If you went through this, when did you finally start being able to eat normally again?

Did the nausea and dry heaving gradually fade as your body adjusted to Zoloft?

Did increasing the dose temporarily bring it back?

And if anxiety itself was making your stomach tense up and preventing you from eating, did that loop eventually disappear once Zoloft started helping the anxiety?

I mainly want to hear from people who went through this specific "I'm anxious, my stomach locks up, I can't eat, I get nauseous and start dry heaving" phase and eventually got their appetite and normal stomach back.

Because right now I swear my stomach has its own anxiety disorder lol.

I'm on a journey from daily cannabis to just Zoloft. While I thought my partner would be enthusiastically supportive, she is (and this may be just her personality) somewhat negative when it comes to me discussing my side-effects. I need to be careful about how *much* I complain/share because she sometimes pushes back and asks if "all this" is worth it. I've told her that be being "hot" often (among other small side-effects like hand sweating) is a trade-off I'm willing to accept because of the improvement in my mental health but... she doesn't always hear it that way.

Not really a question, just wondering if others are dealing with similar reactions from loved ones.

I’ve noticed that Zoloft is only partially helping with my depression and anxiety, even after increasing the dose to 150 mg. I asked about adding Wellbutrin, since I’ve seen others benefit from that combination, but my doctor didn’t recommend it because he said it might worsen my anxiety. I’m trying to understand how some people end up on Zoloft + Wellbutrin and whether that could ever be an option for me.

I haven't been able to leave the house because I would have really bad anxiety and panic attacks while I was out. Even the thought of leaving the house made me feel sick and anxious. Well, I was able to go out at 5am this morning and take a walk without a panic attack. I had some anxiety but it was manageable. Going to try and do this again tomorrow :) Really proud of myself!

my doctor and pharmacy is being a nightmare. last week i wouldve had to of missed a week of tablets (at 50mg) but i was able to get an emergency supply for 5 days. that runs out tomorrow and ill likely be getting my next prescription on friday but its still uncertain.

ill be missing one day which ive heard isnt a big deal but my parents seem content with me missing more (im 20 but i live at home as im autistic and a student; im not as capable as other people my age and rely on my parents for a lot) because they dont seem to see it the way i do.

i am very very scared of "relapsing" back into a suicidal thought pattern, i dont want to die but im scared if i miss a lot then itll be what my brain will default to.

how much sertraline can i miss before it becomes a serious problem? ive been on it for just over a month :(

also my parents are helping me, but i really had to push to get an emergency prescription and it took for my parents to see me crying for that to happen. i know theyre in my corner but they dont see it the same way i do

I recently started my tapering journey. My gp recommended a compounding pharmacy and I tried to reduce with compounded tablets which were a different brand but had bad withdrawals and had to go back up using my generic prescription.

The next time I reduce the dose, I’d like to do hyperbolic tapering at very minuscule doses using liquid sertraline.

The compounding pharmacy I previously went to did not do liquid sertraline and my gp recommended I make it myself. I don’t feel confident enough to make the solution myself.

Has anyone been able to find a pharmacy in Australia that provides liquid sertraline?

I spent a lot of time reading these when I was getting started, so I wanted to be sure to share my experience.

I started taking zoloft to address a panic response I developed in work settings. It started in larger, high stress presentations and got progressively worse until simple low stake conversations triggered it. I was diagnosed with CPTSD and this is one of the ways it manifested in me.

Anyways, I slowly worked my way up over several monthts with tons of side effects (increased anxiety, jaw clenching, sleep problems, headaches.)

I started seeing improvements about a month ago, and now, only a week into an increase from 75mg to 100mg, something amazing has happened. My panic and anxiety is just... gone. I'm like my old self after 10 years of struggling. I'm shocked. I was hopeful it would help, but it's a massive difference. Even high stress presentations aren't phasing me. I'm just feeling the normal amount of adrenaline. I don't feel disconnected or like a zombie. Just normal!

It's also helping with my other symptoms I've always struggled with, like sleeping with my back to the door, closing my eyes in the shower and just generally living in a state of fight or flight. I'm very happy.

Just a little encouragement for those getting started. Hang in there. Something really wonderful might be on the other side of this.

ive been on sertraline for almost 4 years now (started at 50mg, then went up to 100mg). ive never been good at taking my meds. in over 3.5 years of taking it, I never actually took it every day for 6 weeks straight. a few months ago, I was feeling nauseous on the days I took my meds, so my psych recommended I try taking them at night instead of in the mornings.

it was like a switch flipped.

since the first day I started taking them before bed, I haven't missed a single day. even when I fell asleep on the couch and woke up in the middle of the night, I still remembered to take them when I went to bed. I have now taken them every day for just over 8 weeks!

as a bit of background, I have been a nail biter for as long as I can remember. it usually didnt get too bad, they'd get pretty short sometimes, but I didnt mess up my fingertips or cuticles or anything. ive tried lots of things to try to stop, and sometimes it would work for a few weeks before I started back up, or id stop biting some of my nails but not all of them.

about a week ago, I suddenly noticed that my nails were getting long. I hadn't even noticed id stopped biting them. even my #1 target for nail biting (left index) was getting long. for the first time I can remember, all of my nails are long enough that I can shape them and not just have square or oval nails (currently rocking something in between almond and stilleto). i havent felt the urge to bite them, and they feel so much stronger cuz I havent been absent-mindedly chewing on them.

anyone else have a similar experience?

Tomorrow (hopefully if the pharmacy finally has it ready) will be my first day on 25 mg. And I’m actually kinda nervous to start since I’ve never had to take any medications regularly. And I’m not sure exactly how I’m supposed to feel… anyways, I have a couple questions that I just thought of and haven’t had the chance to ask my psychiatrist about. (I’m aware I can search these things up but would like to hear from people with experience)

I’m bad at drinking a lot of water, in turn I find myself dehydrated often. Is this something that’s really important to keep in check for this medication?

Should I make sure to eat before I take it?

Should I take it first thing in the morning? Or afternoon?

Any vitamins I should pair with it?

Is coffee still alright? 👀

Anything else I should know?

Just started my fourth week on Zoloft (50 mg), and I’ve noticed that I have SO many dreams in one night.
They’re not nightmares at all, and most of them are usually about things I was thinking about before going to sleep.
The whole thing where I dream about whatever I was thinking about before bed NEVER used to happen to me, but now it happens pretty much every day. I’m really curious if anyone else has experienced the same thing?