to lower my antidepressant medication (sertraline) without consulting my doctor?

[onetwosteponmyshoe]

Long story short: I have been on Sertraline for two years. I am currently on 200mg and I would like to lower the dose to 150mg as the start of a longer term plan to come off the medication entirely. The plan would be to stay on 150mg for between 3-6 months - December time, at which point I would hope to go down to 100mg.

My doctor is not a pleasant person and it takes forever to get through to anyone at the surgery. It has been an uphill battle - always - to get a prescription for anything, or a consultation, so I do not fancy having to beg / persuade / explain myself.

This is a decision I have not taken lightly and have given much consideration to.

So: am I being unreasonable to simply lower the dose myself and not consult my GP?

TIA

And actually she told me to bite round it towards the end so tiny pieces

Yes I said I consulted her. Sorry have I written something confusing? 😩

I'm really confused 😐

How did this go? Did you have any or many adverse side effects?

200mg is a high dose. You obviously had serious mental health issues before this if that's the dose you've ended up on. Therefore, it's too risky to attempt it on your own.

If you don't feel you can talk to your GP, change them. Avoiding GPs never ends well in the long term.

It can feel horrible going off SSRIs so I would advise anyone considering it to get plenty of support to help you through it. Like seeing a counsellor/ therapist, planning lots of self care and support from family and friends.

Thanks for this. I hadn't seen such detailed information before.

@onetwosteponmyshoe I tried dropping from 50 to 25 and it was bad. Also tried dropping from 50 every day to every 36hrs so effectively a 33% reduction. Maybe not the brightest plan as I know the half life is around 24hrs and it was a nightmare to keep track of, but also did not succeed and back at 50mg now.

As PP have said, your dose is quite high to begin with so I wouldn't do any massive jumps. 25% seems not massive but it's my entire dose and I know if I've missed one cos I'm a mess! Time to find another doctor? When you get a good one it makes such a difference.

There is no reason at all your doctor should stop you tapering. They aren’t incentivised to keep you on drugs! Please book an appt and tell them you’d like to start gradually stepping down. They will be able to advise you of the best way and duration and also you will have your medical records reflect that so if you do need additional help / a safety net it will be much less stressful.

for the person who mentioned 3mg of sertraline, surely this is just a placebo?

FWIW I’m on 100mg, started on 50mg 8 weeks ago and was stepped up half way through. Finding it’s working well unless I drink. Which I’m finding it hard to quit due to some relationship and work issues.

No, not at all.