Should I change medication?

[Frozentinkerbelle1]

Hi

I have had anxiety for a number of years which has been getting progressively worse. COVID 19 had made this even more difficult. I work (more or less full time and been busy during lockdown etc) and have 2 primary age children (1 with additional needs).

I took the decision to discuss medication with the doctor as the only way forward and decided to look at CBT (which I am still on with). I was prescribed sertraline 50mg and I felt much better initially. However I am experiencing side effects of not being able to get to sleep, finding it difficult to get out of bed in a morning (I feel quite exhausted and light headed for a while), increased appetite (and weight gain) and I have started to feel up and down mood wise too.

I am wondering if I should contact doctors to see about change of medication. I don't want to change if it's going to cause more side effects.

Sorry for long post. Xx

You need to have a medication review. All the symptoms you describe could be related to depression, which often comes hand in hand with anxiety but isn't always recognised, rather than side effects of the medication. If it helped initially, it may actually be better to increase the dose rather than switch

If you definitely only have anxiety and not depression, you could ask to decrease the dose. 25mg sertraline is the usual anti-anxiety dose

Thank you both.

I think I am bit depressed. I'll phone doctors to have a chat about it.