Experience with Zoloft withdrawal

I'm so relieved to find this site and see that I'm not alone in this process. I've been on anti-depressants for panic and anxiety attacks for 2.5 yrs now. For the past year I've taken Zoloft but really felt I was at a place where I was ready to come off of it. I spend a few weeks take 25mg instead of 50 and then stopped cold turkey. Since then I've had these constant feelings of pressure in my stomach, feeling like I could cry at anything, and the sleeping problems. Very weird dreams..

If anyone else has had the stomach pressure and tightness please respond.

Sure you might face some side effects.Every antidepressant will have its own side effects.But they show some positive impact on the disorder.

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I saw an episode of house where this guy was having the same symptoms as you and it turned out to be someting very serious. You need to see a doctor because electric shocks are usually neurological having something to do with the pain receptor in your brain. I am having withdrawals from Zoloft now, and I don't have electic shocks, and my eyes aren't moving rapidly. Good luck!!!

I just weaned off of Zoloft 2-3 weeks ago slowly, under a doctor's supervision. I had been on 100mg/day for about 7 years. A few days after I stopped completely I developed a persistent nausea, dizziness/disorientation, confusion (couldn't think), irritability, panic attacks, breathing difficulties that come and go, and relatively mild "electric zaps" that a couple of guests wrote about earlier (not all at once, but over a few days all of these symptoms popped up). Not realizing what was causing my sumptoms (I assumed that the panic attacks were the only withdrawal symptom), I went to my family doctor for the nausea and dizziness (vertigo) and got some medicine for the nausea. After researching on the internet, it is obvious that all of these symptoms are caused by damage the zoloft has done to my brain/nervous system over the past 7 years. I, too, wish I had found another way to handle my depression and panic disorder without drugs. I am just scared now because my symptoms persist and I don't know how long they will last, or if they will ever stop. It is comforting to know that I am not alone, though. I have found that exercise helps alleviate the symptoms, at least temporarily (esp. yoga). May God bless us all, and help us to regain our health.

I am 17 years old, and have been on Zoloft for about 3 months (50 mg). I have suffered random panic attacks, dizziness, brain fogginess, and depression since October following mononucleosis. I resisted taking any type of medication until February of this year, as i had to quit my job for repetitive panic attacks (restaurants, airports, malls are where i most frequently get them.) My friends say they could tell a difference in my behavior while i was on the drug and didn't like the idea of me going off. I suppose it helped a bit as my anxiety wasn't as bad, but the dizziness and lethargy (brain fogginess) still persisted. I just went off Zoloft about 2 weeks ago after being so confused. People were telling me to do so many different things, i just became sick of it. I wanted off. Literally a day or two after going off Zoloft, i experienced CHRONIC FATIGUE (almost like i had when i had mono), extreme dizziness, reoccurring vertigo. The symptoms are so bad that i haven't even been able to go to my last week of senior year and work. I am graduating in 6 days. Part of me wants to just wait it out but i am not sure i can do so. Does anyone know if the vertigo and dizziness sound withdrawl related? and if i should go back on Zoloft?


Thank you.

No not likely at all.

anyone on this sh*t should stop. not abruptly but SLOWLY taper off of it. i had the worst experience of my life coming off zoloft. the doctor never mentioned withdrawal. after 3 months of taking 200mg a day i stopped. huge HUGE mistake. the third day of not taking it i couldnt even get out of bed. i couldnt stop puking and my stomach wouldnt stop convulsing. i hallucinated that i was a demon and even looking at myself in the mirror was physically painful. it would have been very easy to kill myself in this state. no one knew what the hell was wrong with me, i had no idea either. how this sh*t is available and so easily prescribed to people is a travesty. >;)

Hello. I'm on day three of not taking Zoloft. It's the middle of the night here and I have to work in the morning. The last two days all I wanted to do is sleep, so this is weird. It sounds like many of you have it rough. I've been fine so far, but it's still annoying. I was only on 12.5 mg for 8 months. It seems many of you have been on a much higher dose. My doctor was shocked that so low a dose worked for me. Since it had such a great effect, I'm scared the withdrawals will be just as bad. I knew I would experience withdrawal. My doctor tried putting me on Lexapro at first but it made me high, sleep too much or too little, dizzy, and my heart race. I took a low dose of that for less than a week and we I came off it I became suicidal. My doctor told me I could taper my Zoloft, but he didn't think it would matter since I was on so low a dose. He said it would take two weeks to get out of my system. Has anyone else only taken a low dose? Has anyone experienced similar withdrawals? I never wanted to be on an antidepressant. I knew how scary they could be, unfortunately my depression was entirely physical. I want to see this through. I think I'm better now. I was just wondering if I could get some heads up as to what I'm in for?

Today is the end of week one in Zoloft withdrawal. I have been taking 100mg for 10 years. I have battled a lifetime of depression and mania and taking Zoloft did change my life for the better and I was able to accomplish many things that I don't believe I would have had I not been on the medication. I was always so good at self sabotage whenever the depression would kick in fully.

That said, I have decided to stop taking it now - cold turkey.

Over the past few years, I have come down with a mystery illness that I am now wondering if it is so mysterious after all - have had every organ tested, body fluid tested, and many cameras and other instruments have prodded my innards to find out what was wrong and nothing was discovered. Now that I am going through the withdrawals and looking into the symptoms, they are just what I have been going through over the years and wonder if these are related. Although when I would begin the nausea and vomiting, it wasn't due to not taking the meds, but the length of time I would suffer and the duration of vomiting could very well be due to the fact that while sick, I couldn't take my meds, nor put anything into my system as I could not even hold water down. This would generally last a week. For a year, I could get sick once a month or so and eventually it has tapered off to only getting sick maybe twice a year and it lasts just a few days instead of week. If anyone has ever had food poisoning, this is how the sickness has felt to me.

Anyway, my husband has been convinced that my mystery illness has to do with my meds and this has been the reason I decided to stop taking it. I took my normal dosage as usual last Saturday. I woke up early Sunday morning nauseous and vomiting and doing my usual sick thing which lasted until Tuesday afternoon. I figured my stomach probably wouldn't be happy having a pill when it didn't even have food in it, so decided to take this time to stop.

I have not felt dizzy or had any of the brain zaps or wild dreams yet, but I do have the itchies and what I call buzzy face (the tingling in the lips and mouth area mostly). Oh, and the mood swings. I can be sitting happily and tears will stream down my face over a commercial on tv or something else equally inane. I have also been experiencing cramping in my stomach and have had menstrual bleeding.

Honestly, if this is the worst of it. I cannot complain.

I remember the side effects when I started taking the meds. I had night sweats, dry mouth, metallic taste in my mouth and just an allover feeling that things were not quite right. Prior to taking the meds, I would cry over inane things and become so depressed I couldn't get out of bed. It took about 3 months for the positive effects of Zoloft to really kick in.

While reading through the posts, I have noticed many people complain that they are concerned that they won't feel the same as when they were on the meds. I would be VERY surprised if ANYONE said they were feeling the same as when they were taking it -isn't the reason many of us started taking it in the first place was to alleviate the pain of depression or anxiety and to think that once taking the chemical away that stopped that behavior that one would suddenly feel whole and NORMAL upon quitting it, is really pretty ridiculous.

I fully expect to go back to my sad little pathetically depressed pre-zoloft ways and have warned my husband of this as he has never known me without zoloft in my life and I am tired of him hounding me about taking it and all the dangers. He is the reason I have decided to quit taking it so he will stop hounding me about it and how bad it is.

I was a mess pre-zoloft and highly doubt I will suddenly be fine upon quitting. The first several years I was taking it under Dr. supervision, but then I moved to the UK for 6 months and took their version called Sertraline and then when I came back to the states, I no longer had insurance and could not afford to pay approx. $150 per month for it, so I began purchasing the generic Zosert from India for about $28 per month and it worked just fine and I had been taking it ever since.

That said, when I first started getting sick, I was taking Zoloft. I have been taking the Generic since 2005. I am not a chemist and am not sure how the properties change (if at all) between brand and generic meds, but I haven't had any problems to note from the generic.

Anyway, good luck to all!

I'm also currently withdrawing from 50mg/day Zoloft - after taking it for 18 months. The key reason I wanted to stop the medication was because I had gained about 12kgs despite never having been overweight in my life and even though I was exercising on average 3 to 4 times a week. (I'm a physiotherapist so I know the correct approach to exercise yet I could not shift these "new" kilos).
I have however been fortunate to have engaged a highly skilled Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner who is helping me get off the Zoloft a little more smoothly. He has been giving me weekly acupuncture and a TCM herbal preparation that helps to clear my liver and ease anxiety.
Additionally, I did not reduce my Zoloft dosage but stopped it completely in one go. To ease the expected withdrawal symptoms I immediately began taking St John's Wort which I think has been a real help. The TCM and St John's Wort not only eases the withdrawal symptoms but also provides a potential long-term management approach for my depression.
I have still had a number of symptoms since stopping Zoloft such as brain zaps, sleeplessness, irritability, emotional lability and rather strangely a HUGE appetite. Though these symptoms are annoying they do seem to be manageable.
I've been off zoloft for a week and I hope my experience so far may provide a further option for consideraton by others suffering with Zoloft withdrawal symptoms.

Has anyone had any success coming off this medication? I've been off for about 2 weeks after taking 100mg for a year. The first week I had no problems. Now I'm having tingling in my arms and really weird dreams. I'm also tired, get dizzy, and am having very strange food cravings.

Holy c**p! Thank you for all the postings, this is very helpful. I have been on lexapro for two years... gained about 35 pounds. Just switched to zoloft, i've been on it for about a month, i made me miserable. So cranky, depressed, irritable. I stopped taking it on wednesday. It's my third day going through "zoloft withdrawal" i've had the fainting feeling all day, sick to my stomach can't eat a thing. Is there anything over the counter that can help? Any vitamins? etc that might help with the brain flu and withdrawal symptoms?
Thanks so much.

I have been dealing with zoloft withdrawal since january. I began very conservatively stepping down from 100 to 50 for sevaral months. then began 50 to 25 and then to 25 about every two weeks. the worst of it is that I have what I can only describe as the feeling/sound that is made when you have an old fashioned 'etch a sketch' and shake it up to clear any stuff you'd done with it. I have that weird feeling in my brain when I've gone over 8 days without zoloft at all..........anyone else experience this or have any suggestions? thanks!!

I have been on Zoloft for 4 + years following the passing of my father and sister one year. Under the assistance of my doctor, I tapered off from 100 to 50 mg per day then to 50 every other day, every third day, once a week then stopped. It has been three weeks with no zoloft. I too am experiencing dizziness, flu like symptoms, BAD skin rash, coming outta my skin itching, bloating, nausea, anxiety, stuttering, sleep problems, lymph node swelling, - YIKES - I was having some situational depression after losing dad and sis and now I am having severe drug withdrawals. I shoulda, coulda, woulda, dealt with the situational depression one day at a time instead of dealing with ALL the symptoms I have now. If I only knew. Any suggestions from someone out there? Did I get off too soon? I hate to go back on Zoloft and have to deal with this again down the road. I REALLY thought that 3 weeks out of my system would be it. I am tired of this.

One way of reducing Zoloft withdrawal symptoms is the temporary use of Prozac (10 mg). The low level of Prozac remains in your bloodstream for a few days, and while it's there, the uncomfortable Zoloft withdrawal symptoms are greatly reduced. Only take another 10 mg Prozac when/if the symptoms return. Within a few weeks you should be able to cease taking Prozac altogether.
VERY IMPORTANT: I am not a doctor, and you should consult with your physician to insure that taking Prozac is a viable option for you. I only speak from personal experience.