Setraline 12.5 mg or 25 mg for mild anxiety? Too low?

[ChopinL]

Good afternoon all. I recently got a prescription from my GP for Setraline. I’m often sensitive to medication, so I started as low as possible. For a few weeks now I’ve taken half a tablet, so only 12.5 mg.

I am wondering - do people have experience of 12.5 mg or 25 mg being effective for mild anxiety?

I would say I have mild anxiety. Sometimes chest pains, and under rib pain and tightness, stomach aches, waking with a sense of dread in the morning. No panic attacks but easily emotionally upset by things. But fairly functional otherwise.

I’m in my early 60s. My history is only very occasionally needing SSRIs in the past. Obviously I want to take them minimum effective dose but am not sure how to gauge this.

Have people here had any similar experiences? I started taking 12.5 mg a few weeks ago, and most of the above physical anxiety symptoms appear to have gone.

However, I am now experimenting with 25 mg - as my GP told me that 25 mg is the minimum effective dose, but I am wondering if that’s true? Anyone with mild anxiety stayed on 12.5 mg, or else improved further going up in dosage?

Any thoughts? 🙏

Years ago I was a subject in a study on liver function and drug absorption, and one of the classes of drugs in the study was anti-depressants. The variation in how much active medication ended up in our blood streams, depending on our different liver enzymes, was striking.
So it's possible that you have a therapeutic dose of sertraline getting to your brain from a smaller oral dose.