Mental Health

[Swissroll12]

Hi. I’m hoping for a little bit of advice from someone that is going through or has been worried about their child please .
My dd is 20 and at uni she has been going through low mood for some time now she’s not suicidal but wakes up every day feeling very low
We have talked but she doesn’t want to completely open up to me which is fine , I advised speaking to her uni support and she’s been attending counselling at uni ,

She went to see our Dr yesterday and he’s prescribed Sertraline 50mg , with a review in a few weeks & a referral for therapy .

Has anyone taken this drug ? my dd took a tablet last night her eyes dilated and she felt nauseous

I have done some reading and these side effects are normal to start with .
Any advice on Sertraline or how I can support my dd please ?

I have been taking Sertraline for several years, as well as working in MH so dealing with a lot of service users who are prescribed it.
I can tell you that it works for me. I cannot tell you that it will work for your daughter. Everyone's experience with SSRI medication is individual to them.
What I can say is that they take around 4-6 weeks to actually start working as they should. Unfortunately, during that time, your daughter will most likely experience feeling worse than she does now. At times, much worse. I know this sounds counter productive and this is usually the point where people refuse to continue the medication. However, it is important that she gives the medication the full 4-6 weeks to kick in.
It won't feel like some major celebration in her brain, she won't wake up and suddenly be tap dancing with happiness. But, if it works for her, she will notice one day that she feels more "normal".
Something to note about SSRI meds though, is that they have a tendency to cause brain fog, reduced libido (sorry, I know she's your daughter but she might want to know!), and a numbness to a lot of emotions. For example, you might expect her to be upset or to be overjoyed about something but she isn't. Please know that this is the medication, not your daughter.
Hopefully that helps. Once she is in maybe the 6-8 week range, if she genuinely doesn't feel any better, she should return to her GP who will try her on something else.
Make sure she knows to never take Sertraline on an empty stomach, and to always take it with a glass of water. The 50mg tablet is very small, but I learned the very hard way that you definitely need to take it with a drink.