As per a member's request, I've started this thread so we can discuss the symptoms we've suffered when going off of Zoloft.

Please share your Zoloft withdrawal experiences here.

Thanks.

-Bean

It was the worst experience in my life. Was at 150 mg and dropped 25 mg every 5 days to see if it changed the physical symptoms I was experiencing (chronic pain, numbness/tingling, etc). It did not, but added onto other problems, such as dizziness, feeling like I had to pee real bad for 4 days straight, joltiness, and other things. My depression came back quickly and with not feeling well physically either, I was a mess. I wound up overdosing and had to spend 3 days in a psych ward. Am trying Lexapro, but is too early to tell if it will work and doctors still don't know what's wrong with me physically yet. I'm doing o.k. mentally, but I still struggle. I will have to be more careful when I withdrawal in the future and tell more people what's going on. I need more accountability in my life. Don't really have my family for that, but I have many good friends here.

im sorry your having such a ruff time. hang in there.

I tapered off slowly and it wasn't too bad. I did have the "brain shocks" thing for about four weeks afterward; annoying and distracting but it eventually faded away.

John:

How are you feeling now? Are you currently taking any meds?

-Bean

I'm glad I found this thread so I can add in. My doctor just reduced my dosage from taking one pill everyday to one every other day. By the way, I have been in the medication for 2 years now and July last year, I hit the rock bottom of my life and I feel much better now about myself and my life in general. I used to experience panic attacks, anxiety, confused and really tough mornings and not enough sleep. But things are really improving; finally I've got my life pretty much sorted out: new job, found a new place to live (moving at the end of this month...yippie!) and able to take my dogs with me, self confidence, until last week...I started feeling rough mornings again.

The feeling is not as bad as before, but compared to the weeks before, I can feel that I am going backwards. Depressing mornings, difficult to focus, lost a little bit of a grip in my daily life (i.e. more temperamental). I discussed this with my doctor earlier this day and he said that it is normal. He wanted to stop Zoloft but I asked him if it was a good idea considering that work is pretty stressful at the moment and I have to move to a new place. So he kept the once every two days dosage and told me to come back in 2 weeks. So I am being monitored pretty closely.

It is not really good, a bit scary that I'm starting to feel down in the mornings again, waking up too early and a bit afraid listening to the birds chirp, but I think the body needs to adjust slowly with Zoloft because within a week, I can feel the difference.

It is also important to surround ourselves with just good things (sounds selfish, but who cares...) and not expose ourselves to potential depressing situation. I avoid hard to not go there and I don't care what my friends and family say about me. My doctor told me to not be afraid of the symptoms, I'm not going to be in the bottom again. So lets see what happens.

It is scary, though, the thought of stopping the meds, afraid that my depression will come again. It is like a worry whether I will survive the world after being in meds for so long. I hope I can get through this.

I'm on 150 mg a day right now. I tried the exact same thing- reduced my dosage down to 125 mg this week. I didn't have as much physical problems as you did but the emotions were AWFUL. It was absolutely horrible. I can't do it. I lasted only a few days. I'm back to taking 150mg. It sucks, I don't want to have to take pills for the rest of my life. I'm in a new relationship and my boyfriend is trying to adjust.

I am in a new city and I need to find a doctor here that I can talk to about my medication and possibly seek some talk therapy. I would like to change my meds at the very least. My main problem with Zoloft is that I can't climax during sex. I know, I know- it sounds so petty but the physical enjoyment is very important to me.

What do you think of the Lexapro?

Hi LeeLee,

I have been taking 50 mg for about a month and a half and I was feeling better, but now am becoming more anxious again. Hearing people talk about trying to cut back makes me rather fearful about upping my dosage. I'm meeting with my doctor later this week and will talk to him about it. Even at 50 mg I have had very frustrating sexual side-effects and a similar inability to orgasm (from the male perspective). I'm not exactly sure what to do because this is an unacceptable side effect for me, and I haven't heard anyone give any good advice about how to deal with it. Once I reach my 5 post minimum I'd like to start a new topic about this. In the meantime, hang in there and does anyone have any positive experience with overcoming sexual side effects? Please post if you do...

Peace,
Tom

I have to say that this withdrawal is not as easy as I thought. This two days has been the worst. I guess the body just needs time to adjust.

What I feel is lost energy, confused, not focused, sad, anxiety, felt left by friends, easily get upset. It is similar to when I was having the major depression. But I don't want to up my dosage. I want to be free from meds.

But I begin to think, maybe I have to live with Zoloft for the rest of my life. I dunno...

Losing hope here...

good luck deep. keep letting us know how ur doing. im sure my day will come to get off zoloft also. so it will b nice to come here and look at ur posts and have some ideas as to what will happen

Thanks, Jumbled.
This morning I woke up quite ok, still a bit disoriented but ok. Maybe because I know that I have to go travelling. So I guess it will help if there is something that I do to distract the feeling.

Although it is difficult, I think it's the only way to reduce the withdrawal effect. I try praying, breathing and though difficult, try to keep busy.

I'll keep everyone posted, but my feeling is that when you taper down Zoloft, it will take a while, just like when you started it, it takes a while to kick in.

DD

Too early to tell how the Lexapro will do. I just had to up it to 20mg and it is helping a little. I have a lot on my plate right now, so I don't know if that is affecting things or not. How come you dropped dosage? Good luck with everything!

How come you are dropping the dosage? It definitely takes awhile to adjust.

DD,

I'm really surprised that your doc advised to take it every other day rather than halving or reducing the daily dosage. I had a friend who used to mess with her meds (just couldn't accept the idea of being on an AD). She was a trainwreck with the every other day thing, which was her own self-prescribed solution. After a lot of pushing from me, she finally spoke to her doc who explained what a horrible idea it was to basically start and stop the AD every other day and instead advised her to take half the dose EVERY day. After that, my friend calmed down, felt better and was a lot easier to be around.

I don't know about this every other day idea. Doesn't sound right. Is this a GP advising you or a pdoc? Sounds like a GP to me.

Why are you coming off the Zoloft in the first place? Are you reporting the return of symptoms to your doc? He should be monitoring the return of symptoms. Honestly, with the level of Zoloft in your system ping-ponging around the way it is now, I don't see how you couldn't feel bad.

The normal way to come off Zoloft is to reduce the current dosage by 25 mg and keep going down 25 mgs at a time every fweek. Not take full dose one day, skip the next, take a full dose another day. This just doesn't sound like a doc who knows how to wean someone off an SSRI.

KA

[The normal way to come off Zoloft is to reduce the current dosage by 25 mg and keep going down 25 mgs at a time every fweek. Not take full dose one day, skip the next, take a full dose another day. This just doesn't sound like a doc who knows how to wean someone off an SSRI.

KA
[/quote]

KA, your input is very valuable. I was also thinking the right thing about taking it everyday but half of the dosage. My doctor is a psychiatrist. He is a good one so far, and when I was taking 50mg, I felt very stable. It has been quite a while taking one everyday and he thought that it was time to reduce the dosage. I agreed, but I didn't know that it was really difficult. I told him about the side effect but he said it is normal. So I tried to hang in there, but it really made me difficult to live my normal life.

Before, tapering from 100 mg a day to 50 a day was alright. But this last bit of my journey is really killing me.

I need to tell you that weekends are the worst, maybe it is also my PMS kicking in. Also, I am moving out from my apartment. Yesterday, I was really a wreck. I took 2 sleeping pills to just sleep and sleep.

I might take your advise by taking half a dose one day and a full dose another day. I have tons of things going on right now and I cannot afford having all this downer. It is ok during the working days, but during weekends, it is just killing me. I also really want to be free from AD. Really. Although this means that I am 'designing' my own dosage, this probably is what I need to do for the time being.
Thanks.

DD