Sertaline and food drink interactions

[Tasha2106]

I’m currently taking 50mg of sertaline a day I’m just wondered am I okay drinking tea with milk? I’m worried because of the caffeine

I’ve never been told not to have caffeine, I drink loads of tea with no ill effects. I’m on 100mg.

You just can’t have grapefruit! Why don’t you think you can have tea with milk?

Also that is a very small dose

Just grapefruit.

If you have issues sleeping though you should probably avoid caffeine from lunch time as it has roughly a six hour half time.

I was under the impression from my GP to cut out caffeine altogether including tea coffee and chocolate. I’ve been on them 5 months now. I’m really missing all of these things and wondered if I would be okay having them again

If you have seriously difficulty sleeping then yes I would agree with your doctor, however if not then you could try decaf tea/coffee and a small amount of chocolate (few squares) but best to have by lunch time because they still have small amounts of caffeine in them and it takes roughly 6 hours for the amount to reduce to half the original dose you ingested.

caffeine doesnt interact with sertraline but if sleep is a problem then avoiding caffeine is a good idea

I've never once been told I can't have caffeine (or grapefruit, for that matter! Why not?)

What does grapefruit do??!

I never knew about grapefruit! I'm on 50mg for half of the year and don't change my diet at all - I don't drink tea but do have coffee and chocolate and haven't noticed any impact. But they do work differently for everyone so maybe just try and see?

When I first went to the Docs for my anxiety the first thing why asked me to do was cut out caffeine and alcohol, use natural sleep aids and practise mindfullness, these where a pre step to prescribing medication and if it still continued to come back, it helped but not enough so I am also on 100mg sertraline, I still practise some of the natural remedies but the sertraline does seem to have my anxiety in hand so I reintroduced caffeine in small amounts during the day and will have the odd glass of wine at the weekend, i think it’s about aiding yourself and making healthier choice, so it’s not actually a contraindicator.
The grapefruit thing is because it causes your body to metabolise the medication faster and is usually printed on the packed by the pharmacy

Grapefruit alters the absorption rate, so you may not get the full effect or over medicate.

Grapefruit also messes with Statins as well.

It's horrible anyway, no need to eat it at all!!