Antidepressant help gp appointment today

[Hueandcry]

I have an appointment with my GP today to review my antidepressant medication. I'm on Sertraline 50mg, have been for a year due to depression & PTSD. It's not working. I tried upping the dose to 100mg but felt awful so reduced it back to 50mg. Then female GP changed it to Fluoxetine to help with menopause symptoms but I had terrible insomnia so changed back to Sertraline. I feel constantly exhausted & have gained a stone despite eating healthily & exercising loads. Ideally I'd like to come off it but I realise I'm not ready yet. Please help me with suggestions to discuss with GP today

Appointment in an hour

Are you having counselling for the reasons behind your depression? I had a session of EMDR for ptsd and it was great. I also had cbt which I can't rate highly enough. Antidepressants always make me feel as you describe.

I also read on here that antidepressants should not be prescribed for menopause symptoms, but you should be given hrt instead. Good luck.

Perhaps stay on the sertraline and try some CBT to tackle the underlying issues? PTSD can be effectively treated through therapy, I never had joy with meds for PTSD. Depression may ease once that is under control? Changing meds is just a lottery, try it, see if it works, if not try another. Very hard to predict.

Counselling is private for PTSD as nothing else available. GP said just to persevere with meds I'm on as having tried upping them & changing to another he didn't know what else to suggest other than stopping them altogether which isn't an option right now. Feel like the appointment & myself are a total waste of time

Counselling is available on the NHS and you are entitled to receive it. You can be referred to IAPTs (Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies) initially or to psychological services if more help is required. Demand that your GP does this. There will be a waiting list and you should get on it ASAP.

You can just ring IAPT yourself, can't you? Sorry you're going through this. I would recommend seeing a different gp.