To ask for your experiences with Steraline?

[Blueskyformiles]

I have been so depressed and anxious for so many years (I’d say probably the last 10-12 years) and it’s finally now reached crisis point. I had a baby last year and have intrusive thoughts everyday.

I have huge social anxiety now and am such a moaning, negative person. I’ve become eeyore. There’s hardly anyone that I feel I like anymore or that I have anything in common with anymore and it’s making me want to retreat from everyone.

Now - the reason why I’ve not sought help (or medicated help anyway) sooner. I do like a social drink and when I do get together with friends it is manly for dinner or drinks/ a night out. I don’t drink during the week at home but do enjoy a couple or glasses of wine on a Friday and Saturday night if I’m at home.

In short, could I go without it, yes, I sometimes go weeks without drinking, but do I want to go without alcohol, especially in social situations? No I don’t.

Do you really have to give up alcohol on steraline?

I’m also terrified of weight gain, I work hard to keep the weight that I am and I’ve heard horror stories of people piling on the lbs on steraline. Is it better to weigh more and be happier? Well yes, obviously but I also know putting on a load of weight would make me really unhappy too!

It’s these two things that have put me off going to the drs and asking for help (I would also ask for CBT or some sort of therapy too) but I just hate who I am now and know I can’t put off the inevitable anymore.

Excellent post.

I can't speak from personal experience, but my son takes it.

He says its evens out the high and the lows, so sometimes he doesn't feel as sad or anxious as he would have done, by he also doesn't feel as joyous about things as he might have done.

He also says he can't cry.

As someone on the outside looking in, it seems to be an overall positive experience.

He currently works shift work and the times of the day he is taking the medication isn't always the same, so sometimes he ends up missing a dose or two along the way, and he says he can feel when he has not taken it.

I didn’t get on with sertraline - it immediately gave me urinary retention. Also raging insomnia though that could have been because I was desperate for the loo but unable to go.

BUT please persevere. Everyone says you may have to try a few anti depressants before you find one that works for you. Even should you find the side effects of sertraline unmanageable, people react very differently to different SSRIs and there will almost certainly be one for you. I swapped to fluoxetine (Prozac) and although I was concerned I’d just have the same problem again, I have got on so well with it. No headaches, no nausea, no insomnia and no sexual side effects. More importantly I feel like it has given me my life back. I only realised once I started taking it how unwell I had been.

I drank on it no issue but i would prob ease yourself in and check how you react to drinking. I gained 3 stone while on it (over 18 months roughly) so that wasn't great but i was in such a bad state that it was worth it even with that. I came off a few months ago and now trying to lose the weight . It was a massive help to me while i was on it.

It's bloody hard popandchoc - I too gained 3 stones on this drug very quickly.