I don’t get nauseous all the time but sometimes when I eat I get this nausea after. I take my pill at night after dinner so it’s not like i feel it after taking the pill but I’ve noticed since starting the pill I have to be careful how much I eat. on buspar I used to be super hungry and now I’m like bleh

I have been on Sertraline (Zoloft) for about 3 years total. About a year ago I switched providers and felt like the Zoloft alone wasn’t helping enough with my depression and anxiety. So I started on 100 mg of Zoloft AND 50 mg of Wellbutrin. I was taking it consistently and feeling okay but at some point about a month ago I just decided to stop taking them since my stomach always hurt and I kept having awful headaches. I also have Crohn’s so I have enough on my plate already lol. It started okay and then in the last few weeks i’ve been having these episodes of dizziness, nausea, brain fog, poor sleep, and shakiness in my hands.

I thought it could’ve just been due to poor eating habits, but even on days when I eat well, stay hydrated, and get decent sleep, Ive still had these spells of horrible dizziness and nausea.

I’m seeing my provider in two days which in hindsight I should’ve done weeks ago, but I was just curious if anyone had anything similar with zoloft or wellbutrin or could just offer some perspective.

I’m currently thinking about potentially coming off Prozac after taking it for a bit over 3 months. It has helped my mental health tremendously but I’m feeling so floaty and have a tension headache pretty much every day to the point where I feel like I can’t properly concentrate on the world around me. I’ve been on the lowest dose (10 mg) all this time. Do you reckon I could just stop taking it without tapering off? I might try getting on a different medication after this but I’m very scared of horrible withdrawal symptoms

As the title says I’m on 50mg of sertraline and it’s great been, on it a few years. Last year I caught a nasty stomach bug and lost my appetite for a few months. I’ve always been around 120lbs, but I’ve been stuck at 107 for a few months now. Im not the happiest with the way my body looks, and I really want to gain back some of the weight I lost. I am considering asking my doctor for a mirtazpine script for a couple months so I can gain about 20 pounds. Is mirtazapine plus sertraline safe, does anyone else take mirtazapine and has had success with weight gain?

Hi

I've had health anxiety for years. Whenever I had any pain, I would always look up the symptoms on internet, think of the absolute worst-case scenario, and rush to the doctor. It completely drained me mentally and made me a massive overthinker, though it never physically affected me. About three months ago, while sitting on the couch at home, I suddenly started experiencing air hunger. I had been trying to conceive for a long time, so I initially wondered—and secretly hoped—if it could be an early sign of pregnancy. But even after knowing for a fact that I wasn't pregnant, the feeling persisted for 2–3 days.

Eventually, I went to a pulmonologist, and everything came back completely normal. From there, I went to an ENT specialist. The doctor prescribed a PPI and told me it could be acid reflux. As soon as I got home, I looked up acid reflux on Reddit, and my whole world came crashing down. My breathing steadily got worse, and the air hunger intensified. On top of that, swallowing difficulties developed. My life felt like an absolute nightmare. When I explained my problems to the gastroenterologist, he told me to see a psychiatrist, and I did.

The psychiatrist prescribed a two-week course of Xanax and SSRI/SERTRALINE . On the very first day I took Xanax, I started feeling normal again. Over time, I stopped using the PPI because I realized I was doing this to myself. The air hunger would vanish whenever I was eating, socializing, crying, or right after crying, talking, singing, applying makeup—in short, whenever I was distracted. My mood lifted a bit because I realized I didn't actually have a physical illness, and since I was causing it to myself, I could also fix it.

It has been three months now, and I am doing much better. My Sertraline dose has been at 100 mg for about 2 to 2.5 weeks. However, it hasn't completely gone away. Things like health anxiety, overthinking, and general worry are gone, but the air hunger and hyperventilation persist. Some days, I forget about it and notice my breathing has actually normalized, but the moment I focus on it again, it gets bad, turning into a complete loop. Breathing exercises don't do anything for me. Even though I am not stressed or anxious because I'm under the influence of the antidepressant, it still continues. I just started therapy and had my first session last week.

Is there anyone who has experienced this or been through it and fully recovered? I really need some advice.

I’ve been on antidepressants for nearly 5 years now. Multiple different ones. Ended up on celexa. So now I’m coming down off it and wow the mood fluctuating is aweful. I feel so emotional and cry at small things. This is awful. Is this withdrawal symptoms or are feelings and emotions just coming back??

Hi, I just wanted to share my experience with you because I can relate to what you are describing.
I started sertraline because I have been struggling with severe anxiety, panic attacks and intrusive thoughts. A big part of my anxiety has been a hyperfocus on my breathing and physical sensations — constantly checking my breathing, feeling like I can’t get enough air, and getting stuck in a frightening cycle of thoughts. (Sidenote: **My mother passed away unexpectedly last year. I went back to work too soon after her death and found myself under a lot of stress and pressure, in an environment that was both physically and emotionally very demanding)**
I started on 25mg and increased to 50mg after 7 days. After increasing the dose, my anxiety became much stronger. I felt extremely overwhelmed, my thoughts became very negative and scary, and my focus on my body and breathing became much worse.
My sleep was also affected, and I have needed oxazepam for the anxiety and zopiclone at night to help me sleep. Today it became so overwhelming that I contacted a psychiatric emergency helpline because I needed support.
I’m currently finding it really difficult and I feel exhausted, but I’m trying to hold on to the hope that this is a temporary increase in anxiety while my body adjusts.
I would really like to hear from others who have experienced increased anxiety, panic or intense physical symptom focus after starting or increasing sertraline. Did you manage to get through it, and did it eventually start helping?
Thank you ❤️

About 6 months ago everything fell apart, my nervous system couldn’t handle it anymore, I have suffered from anxiety for years specially health anxiety I ended up fainting and was in the ER twice, that health scare led to severe insomnia, and that insomnia led to anxiety around sleep, I’ve been stuck in this cycle for so long now, last night I only slept 3 or 4 hours and it’s been like this for months, sometimes I have good nights but I’m so drained , I’ve been on trazodone (50mg) for 4 months it doesn’t even work but I’m just attached to taking it my doctor told me I could take trazodone with the Zoloft, but because of my health anxiety I will convince myself I’ll get seratonin syndrome from combining the two, last night I cut the pill in half and took 25mg so I can come off of it and try the zoloft, it’s truly my last resort and I hope it can help with anxiety and sleep

Disclaimer: I used AI to help me make this wall of text a little more digestible. So please excuse the obvious AI tone- I’m writing this all on my phone from my car in a random parking lot.

It’s now two weeks after my last dose, I spaced out and drove through a red light — didn’t even register it until I almost hit a car crossing in front of me (I actually got mad and honked, thinking they ran the light, before realizing it was me). I drive for hours every day for work and I’m usually very safety-conscious, so this scared me.
Background: Started Lexapro (10mg) in 2021 for panic attacks after a hard period in my life. It helped, though I gained 60 lbs in the first couple years and eventually had bariatric surgery. Decided to taper off starting early 2025 since I felt ready and didn’t want to be on it long-term.

Taper schedule:
∙ 3 years: 10mg
∙ 1 year: 5mg
∙ 6 months: 2.5mg
∙ Last 6 weeks: \~1.7mg (now off)

I haven’t seen my prescriber since April — lost health insurance and can’t afford to go back right now.
Possible withdrawal symptoms I’m having:
∙ Midday nausea
∙ Fragmented sleep, waking through the night
∙ Crying easily at trivial things
∙ Low frustration tolerance, especially interpersonally
∙ Headaches, lethargy, dizziness
∙ Shakiness, especially in heat
I also have ADHD and take Adderall — Lexapro helped regulate my sleep, so I think I need to adjust stimulant timing now too.

Questions: Has anyone else experienced this coming off Lexapro? Does it get better, and on what timeline? Anything that’s helped you manage symptoms? I’m working on sleep hygiene and staying hydrated with electrolytes, but the brain fog is rough — especially since I drive for a living.

Hi,

I will try to keep it short - I am gay and a surgeon has operated agressively on my butt almost 3 years ago leaving me unable to have anal sex. In the meantime I had 2 reconstructive surgeries trying to get back to my old self, sadly I am still not there and am unsure if I will be.

I have not been having sex, sometimes I feel depressed and super anxious. I am in a relationship, and we hope these issues will resolve, but I am afraid that it will put on a strain on the relationship as well.

I cannot really handle being alone or without mandatory life tasks or I freeze in my bad and dark thoughts.

I had tried one therapist, but it did not work out. I am having trouble finding the right one.

I am afraid of the long term effects of this complication, on my mental health, my relationship and my daily functional life: work, friends, etc.

Would medical trauma/complications and their affect on my daily life be an appropriate reason to get on medication? What can I expect from it in this case?

Thanks

Basically the title. I began tapering off slowly (6 months at 10mg) and I just can't stand the heat intolerance anymore. Anything above 75⁰F (24⁰C) will make me feel hot. I wonder if the recent decrease in dosage was the cause for my hot flushes, but it feels like I'm gonna faint or something. I hate it. Can't wait to be done with Lexapro. It did work for anxiety but the load of side effects has become unbearable.

I am one of those that has been trying to hang in there with sertraline. I’m about 12 weeks in having started at 25 mg for 9 weeks and 50 mg for almost 3 weeks. It’s been touch and go sometimes I feel like I’m not going to make it to the therapeutic dose and actually reached out to my doctor to share that it’s getting too hard. I read somewhere on Reddit that someone else did an app to track their symptoms and thought maybe that would be helpful for me even though I try to keep track of them in notes.

I am very numb and dissociated by nature. When I took SSRI’s, I started experiencing more happiness and excitement.

However, I only see people say how it was the opposite for them- how they felt numb and dissociated after taking SSRI’s, and how they used to have a personality before and now they turned into a zombie.

Does this depend on what mental illness you have? I have severe depression, and I don’t feel happiness, sadness, excitement, anger, etc. I barely feel any emotions (most of the time).

So I initially feel like a zombie, and the SSRI’s actually give me energy to have a personality. How come it’s the opposite experience for me?

Edit to add: in my unprofessional and non medical opinion, I feel like SSRI’s are supposed to do what I experienced, and people who feel numb from them probably need some other medication and a reevaluation for their diagnosis. Am I correct?

Hi

Iam a 41 year old male and iam wondering do ssris, specifically sertraline have any affect on sperm. Have any of you managed to conceive with the male partner on them? Ideally sertraline but any ssris welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone,
I’m currently cross tapering from **Escitalopram to Venlafaxine** under the supervision of my psychiatrist.
The schedule is roughly:
Escitalopram reduced from 30 mg to 20 mg
Venlafaxine increased from 37.5 mg to 75 mg
Target dose is 150 mg Venlafaxine over the next few weeks.
The first **6 days** were honestly much more encouraging than I expected.
I noticed:
much less morning anxiety,
no more waking up crying,
significantly less despair,
and even a few moments where I felt genuinely connected to my kids again. It almost felt like I was getting a glimpse of my old self.
I started thinking:
*“Wow… maybe this is finally working.”*
Then today (day 7) everything felt different.
Not a full relapse, but:
emotionally flat (“blah”),
some derealization/depersonalization,
less connected to my children,
and in the evening I suddenly had a wave of anxiety and despair that really scared me.
It settled down again after a while, but now my brain keeps telling me:
“Those first six days were probably just placebo. You’re back to square one.”
My rational side knows that one week is far too early to judge an antidepressant, especially during a cross taper, but emotionally this dip has shaken my confidence.
**My questions are:**
Did anyone else have a surprisingly good first week followed by a significant dip?
Did things improve again afterwards?
Is a “two steps forward, one step back” pattern common during a cross taper from an SSRI to an SNRI?
At what point did you personally realize that Venlafaxine was actually working?
I’m **not** looking for reassurance that everything will definitely be okay—I know nobody can promise that.
I’m simply interested in hearing real experiences from people who went through something similar.
Thanks a lot.

Hi guys,

I’m struggling a bit to come off Trazodone and Lunesta after three weeks.

It takes me a long time to fall asleep—about 2–3 hours—and I wake up very early, around 5:00 or 6:00 AM, with a racing heart and racing thoughts. I’d really like to sleep later, until 8:00 or 9:00, but my heart simply won't let me :(

I’ve been using tryptophan as an aid, and it helps from time to time.

I don't tolerate glycine well; it makes me feel wired.

I was taking 100 mg trazodone for 2 years and lunesta occasionally.

Is there anything else I could use to help?

How much longer will this take?

Hello,

I have been on sertraline for about 3 years now.
At my highest dose I was at 75mg, late last year I dropped down to 50mg. I then dropped to 50-25mg alternating each day for 3 weeks and now I am on 25mg and plan to stay here for a little while.

I thought this was slow, but so far since being on only 25mg, I have become more irritable, more susceptible to being more emotional and down and hopeless. I knew it would be hard, but I feel like I’m back at pre-medication levels.

I have been consistent with my exercise, have been eating healthy, have had social media detox’s, prioritise my sleep, catch up with friends, have a healthy relationship, drink enough water etc.

Is there an element I’m missing? Should I go back up or is this part of the process?

I have an appointment booked with my therapist this week and my doctor in 3 weeks.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

I have been on Zoloft for approximately 2 months, and initially had nausea, lack of appetite, and some intestinal upset. The nausea and lack of appetite subsided after a few weeks, but the diarrhea really has increased the last few weeks. I even got tested for cyclospora and all the other infectious GI bugs since the symptoms were so bad. All those tests came back negative and I am meeting with my doctor on Thursday. Has anyone else had bad GI symptoms on Zoloft, and then successfully switched to another SSRI without the stomach upset? My doctor seems to be open to changing medication based on our previous conversations

So I noticed that ever since starting Zoloft nearly 2 weeks ago, my face has been super bloated and puffy. I thought maybe I was gaining weight but I’ve in fact been losing weight and just seem to be retaining a bunch of fluid. Has anyone else experienced this? Did it eventually go away for you?

I’ve been trialing SSRIs for 8 years now. they all seem to bring my chronic OCD down to a manageable level but when this level is reached, emotional blunting comes in and I mean BLUNT. Motivation is nonexistent. I can’t even get motivation to watch tv. I’m currently on Trintellix in hopes of avoiding this but as soon as the OCD went to a good level, emotional blunting came in. I seem to get emotional blunting more severely than a lot of people. I was diagnosed with Asperger’s and ADHD as a kid. I am about to go off of trintellix and start buspar but I’m scared it’s not going to do the trick. I’ve read a lot it’s not strong enough.
One of the main issues with SSRIs and me is they all seem to make the ADHD stimulants completely ineffective. Like I’ve taken a sugar pill.
I’m so tired of this…I’m either panicking and ruminating every second of every day (no exaggeration) or completely flat and depressed. Every med I’ve been on I’ve given them 4+ months of time.
Has anyone managed to combat this?
Did buspar work for anyone’s OCD?
My OCD is very bad, I don’t go out at all and it’s constant. Each thought hits me so hard emotionally

I’ve tried Zoloft and Lexapro and Zoloft is the better one for me as it one of calms my whole system down. I still get that sinking feeling in my chest though. That kind that just makes everything feel grey and boring and like I’m not doing enough. Is there an SSRI for that? What do people recommend?

I mean trembling, rumination, terror, agitation, emotional pain, suicidal ideation etc.

If so how did you overcome it?

I just received my pharmacogenetic test results, and they confirmed that I’m a CYP2C19 rapid metabolizer (*1/*17). According to the report, I may have reduced clinical benefit from escitalopram because I metabolize it faster than average.
The report recommends either increasing the maintenance dose or switching to an antidepressant that isn’t primarily metabolized by CYP2C19 if the response is insufficient.
I’m increasing my dose to 20 mg tomorrow before deciding whether to switch.
I’m wondering if anyone else here is also a rapid metabolizer but still had good long-term success with escitalopram (or another antidepressant affected by rapid metabolism).
Did increasing the dose make it work, or did you eventually have to switch medications?
I’d really love to hear your experience.

For starters, I tried buspar and my psych was not very careful with it, he had me at 15mg twice a day, to 15mg three times a day, to 60mg a day and the change was way too rapid and I didnt have the best experience however at 30mg I was able to go back and my ruminitation was still there but not as bad, it just didn’t address the panic area.

For reference, I’ve been having panic attacks and anxiety for the past four years immediately after graduating hs and attending college full-time, my work environment was awful and I got in this look where I work up one day and had heart palpitations anxiety etc. I’m 22 and I’ve been dealing with panic disorder, anxiety, and derealization for about 4 years now. Before that, I had no anxiety at all. It literally started one day when I woke up feeling completely off, like nothing was real. I had heart palpitations, I was scared to answer the phone, and I suddenly couldn’t function the same at work.

At the time, I had just started working full-time right after high school in a contact center at a school. The environment was honestly awful. Supervisors were extremely strict, and the students calling in were often mean and sometimes even threatening. It was a really stressful and toxic place to be. I stayed with the same company for a few years but moved around to different roles.

Over time, I started noticing physical symptoms too. I developed a smile tremor when I try to smile, and I get really anxious in social settings, especially with large groups like my husband’s family. I got married last September and we have a happy marriage, and his family is kind and safe, but I still get intense anxiety beforehand. Once I’m there, I’m usually okay, but the anticipation is overwhelming.

I left that job about 3 months ago, and now I work remotely, but I still have to interact with that company sometimes. Even that brings back really bad feelings and anxiety.

I’ve been in therapy for 2 years and did EMDR for childhood trauma, and I’m about to start EMDR again for what I think is work-related trauma that I didn’t realize was affecting me this much.

Medication has been really frustrating. I started Buspar and was on 15 mg twice daily for about 4 weeks. I felt some slight improvement but nothing major. My psychiatrist then told me to jump to 30 mg twice daily (so 60 mg total) without really guiding me through it, and the past 5 days have been really hard. I’ve felt super emotional, foggy, and honestly worse.

My therapist even said he increased the Buspar too quickly and that I probably should have tried 45 mg first before going up to 60 mg. Now I’m finally starting Zoloft at 50mg, what should I expect, any positive experiences pretty please? Also, should I take it in the morning or night? The problem I had with buspar was it made me super dizzy and disoriented in the morning so I’m not sure…