Does anyone have experience of teenagers on Sertraline?

[NoraLuka]

DD2, 16, has just been prescribed sertraline and I was wondering about other people’s experiences with this.

She’s depressed and literally doesn’t want to do anything, ever, apart from sit in her room doing nothing. She has only missed a couple of days of school and finished her exams - we are not in the UK so exams etc. are different but she has another year of school to go. I’ve had to force her into school some days which I hated doing but I didn’t think letting her stay in her room even more would be good for her.

She’s had nearly a year of counselling, and finally the appointment with the consultant was today after months and months of waiting. He kept saying how well she’d done to keep going to school and that it must have been difficult for her, and I thought he was going to say she was doing okay as she was (I don’t think she is) then after talking to her/me for nearly an hour, offered sertraline.

Has anyone got any positive stories? I’m not against medication at all, but it’s not something I know anything about and I don’t want to google side effects.

My son is autistic and takes it to help with over worrying about things. He's a lot calmer since starting on it. The emotional outbursts have stopped and his mood is more level

I would also like to thank you @NoraLuka

My 18 year old DS is at the very start (day 2) of taking Sertraline. He sounds very similar to how your DD was back in July.

It's taking 20 wild horses to try to get him to take it. It's very hard, but we will perservere.

Latest update isn’t great unfortunately. DD seems to have a Christmas blues type thing going on - doesn’t want any presents, doesn’t want any Christmas dinner, doesn’t want to put up decorations or anything. Not sure what to do. I have got her a few presents anyway because I can’t imagine not getting her anything. It’s all very low key and things she’ll use like comfy slippers as I don’t want to look like I’m ignoring what she’s saying. She was the same for her birthday so I just got her chocolates and a couple of bits and pieces, she seemed happy with that.

The Dr didn’t seem too worried even though her mood has been very low these past few weeks. She is insisting that she won’t be doing anything once she’s finished school in June and won’t discuss it. Her dose of medication has increased and we’re back to monthly appointments with the Dr.

DD takes the medication without much input from me and says she feels it’s helping her feel less stressed. She has 3 tablets a day now, I don’t think she’d take them if she didn’t genuinely feel they were helping.

I think I’ve spent most of the past two weeks trying not to cry tbh, although I don’t let DD see it.

I wrote that big essay and forgot to say hope your DC are doing ok @badhappenings @shellyleppard.

@NoraLuka stable 90 ,per cent of the time now x happy Christmas 🎄 🎁

@NoraLukaI've just been reading this thread as I've recently started on sertraline. How is your daughter doing? I hope Christmas past ok, and she had some enjoyment over the holidays.

Update from our experience - EHCP now secured and starting at a specialist college in a couple of weeks. Improvements all around, really - still have highs and lows, but the lows are nowhere near as low as before. It's taken 3.5 years, but finally feel progress is being made again.

@motherofawhirlwind that's good news x

@Ontherocksthisyear good luck with the sertraline, I hope it works out for you. Unfortunately it didn’t for DD but she is on different meds now and these do seem to be helping a lot. She had to be admitted to hospital because she was refusing any kind of help (or even recognising that she did need help) and just stayed in her room for a long time. It’s been a long road, Christmas seems a lifetime away now! She isn’t completely well yet but she’s on the right track. So basically, apparently sertraline works for a lot of people but if it doesn’t, there are other options. The whole treatment process is different for teenagers than for adults anyway because (at least where we are, not UK) GPs don’t prescribe antidepressants to under 18s so you have to see a specialist for prescriptions and med reviews which obviously takes longer.

One thing which is important to bear in mind and which I didn’t properly realise at first is that getting better isn’t linear, there will be good and bad days, but the occasional off day doesn’t necessarily mean the meds aren’t working or that the depression is coming back. DD was told to keep a journal to keep track of what she’s done, so even if she doesn’t always feel great she can see that there is a general improvement.

Good luck, I hope you start to feel better soon!