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Zoloft

Fitness tips, Relaxation, Mind and Body
bjmarren
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Re: Zoloft

#434641

Postby bjmarren » August 13th, 2021, 8:50 pm

Hi Matt,

Apologies for the delay in replying to your post, we were away for a few days. Your suggestion sis very good, particularly as my wife's problem with sleeping is connected with going over problems and solutions to the various problems in her interrurpted sleep. Putting them down on paper may help her to put them off until the next day. I'll get her to give it a try. Thanks for your continued support.

Brendan

TheMotorcycleBoy
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Re: Zoloft

#434693

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » August 14th, 2021, 8:41 am

bjmarren wrote:Hi Matt,

Apologies for the delay in replying to your post, we were away for a few days. Your suggestion sis very good, particularly as my wife's problem with sleeping is connected with going over problems and solutions to the various problems in her interrurpted sleep. Putting them down on paper may help her to put them off until the next day. I'll get her to give it a try. Thanks for your continued support.

Brendan

No worries.

And have the worry list in a room different to the bedroom. The compartmentalisation aspect is crucial. The bedroom is for sleep, not for thinking!

Furthermore having the list written down, means that the anxious mind, knows where the worries are when they are next needed. It also relegates the worries into being lower-class citizens, just sentences on a list, rather than existential problems.

Matt

bjmarren
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Re: Zoloft

#434895

Postby bjmarren » August 15th, 2021, 12:42 pm

Hi Matt (me again),

From the comments on your invaluable posts, I get the impression you didn't suffer much, if any, side effects from using the SSRI, once the system had got used to the increased levels of seretonin. My wife has been using Zoloft for about a month now and recently started experiencing dizzy spells. Earlier in the week she got up in the very early morning, to use the bathroom and experienced a very dizzy sensation and she passed out momentarily and fell and hit her head against the wall. Luckily, I had got up with her and was able to get her back to bed, and after phoning the emergency services we eventually went to a hospital where she had a scan and thankfully there was no evidence of any problem. We also had a consultation with a Neurologist and he prescribed some medicine (yet more) to help cope with the dizziness, which he said should not be taken for longer than a month.

I know in an earlier post you said you didn't really suffer from side effects after your system got used to the medicine, but can you remember any side effects of dizziness in the early weeks. Also, I know you said that your doses started at 20 mg and progressed to 40. My wife's dose was 20 mg for 2 days and then it was increased to 50 mg. There is some suggestion to increase it to a 100 mg dose! Doctors here seem to love simply increasing the dosage if there is no immediate positive effect. .

Brendan

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Re: Zoloft

#434934

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » August 15th, 2021, 4:39 pm

bjmarren wrote:Hi Matt (me again),

From the comments on your invaluable posts, I get the impression you didn't suffer much, if any, side effects from using the SSRI, once the system had got used to the increased levels of seretonin. My wife has been using Zoloft for about a month now and recently started experiencing dizzy spells. Earlier in the week she got up in the very early morning, to use the bathroom and experienced a very dizzy sensation and she passed out momentarily and fell and hit her head against the wall. Luckily, I had got up with her and was able to get her back to bed, and after phoning the emergency services we eventually went to a hospital where she had a scan and thankfully there was no evidence of any problem. We also had a consultation with a Neurologist and he prescribed some medicine (yet more) to help cope with the dizziness, which he said should not be taken for longer than a month.

I know in an earlier post you said you didn't really suffer from side effects after your system got used to the medicine, but can you remember any side effects of dizziness in the early weeks. Also, I know you said that your doses started at 20 mg and progressed to 40. My wife's dose was 20 mg for 2 days and then it was increased to 50 mg. There is some suggestion to increase it to a 100 mg dose! Doctors here seem to love simply increasing the dosage if there is no immediate positive effect. .

Brendan

Hmm... much better to take quite a few weeks b4 the dosage is increased - from my experience.

Then it should be done v gradually. Serotonin is very fundamental hormone, and needs to be just be v gradually increased. Anyway I'm sure she'll get there eventually. FF to continue to ask for opinions etc. :)

Matt

bjmarren
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Re: Zoloft

#434964

Postby bjmarren » August 15th, 2021, 7:34 pm

Hi Matt,

Thanks for that. How about the dizziness? Any problems with that whilst the system was getting used to the drug?

Brendan

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Re: Zoloft

#435032

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » August 16th, 2021, 7:24 am

bjmarren wrote:Hi Matt,

Thanks for that. How about the dizziness? Any problems with that whilst the system was getting used to the drug?

Brendan

Hi Brendan,

Not really. I mean I guess everyone sometimes sees shooting stars in their eyes, if they rise from a restful position too fast from time to time. I would imagine that many of your wife's issues could be purely down to the Drs. just raising the dosage too quickly.

See, my experience is citalopram not Zoloft. But I'm sure that they are all the same in this regard since they all just up one's serotonin level right? So with my meds the maximum dose is 60mg/day. I started on 10mg. It wasn't until at least a month (maybe 6 weeks) that this went up to 20mg, and then a similar duration elapsed prior to going to 30mg. (On my request I went up to 40mg a couple of years back). As I've just illustrated that's a very gentle rate of increase, and really easy to get used to.

Another point is, how much aerobic fitness does your wife do? Personally I run. But anything like long walks, cycling, swimming, aerobics, weights, nourish the bodies hormone blend and really help a lot with mood. And improving blood/oxygen levels may help alleviate the dizziness.

HTH Matt

bjmarren
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Re: Zoloft

#435155

Postby bjmarren » August 16th, 2021, 3:14 pm

Hi Matt,

Thanks for that, it is very helpful and informative. My wife was put on 20mgs for the first 2 days and then went straight up to 50 mgs. A month later the suggestion is to go up too 100mgs, which I'm against, but we'll see. Where we live, which is at the foot of Vitosha Mountain, on the outskirts of Sofia, we have a lot of opportunities for walking and do so virtually everyday. Also, she uses the indoor bike and some light weights as well, maybe not everyday but a few times a week.

Like you, we both believe that the dizziness is connected to the drugs but it is worrying, given that she had a fall and could have been very seriously injured. As a result we went to see a 2nd Neurologist today for a 2nd opinion on the scan she had as a result of the fall. The Neurologist largely agreed with the opinion of the 1st Neurologist, but on learning my wife has also recently recovered from a bout of Covid, despite being fully vaccinated, she wants to do some more tests on Wednesday. She also gave my wife some exercises to do at home related to reducing the dizziness, and she suggested replacing Zoloft with something else, which they currently use with Covid victims suffering from acute anxiety, and suggested stopping another of the drugs, which also pleased us immensely. We were both very impressed with the thoroughness and professionalism of the Doctor, as well as her excellent Doctor/patient manner, which is all too often missing in hospitals here. We spent an hour and 20 minutes with the Doctor, which is unheard of in my 20 odd years of living here. We went to a relatively new hospital, which is Turkish owned, and were very impressed with the facilities and staff. There are a number of brand new hospitals like this one in Bulgaria, and in Sofia particularly, and whilst the facilities maybe brand new, the attitudes of the people working there are often more in line with old state run institutions. This one was markedly different, and you can usually use a "referral" from your own GP to receive virtually free treatment.

Apologies for veering off topic, but the surprise we got from the experience meant I had to share it with someone.

We are going to see another Psychiatrist tomorrow to get another opinion on things, as the current Psychiatrist seems happy to only suggest drugs to deal with the symptoms but doesn't seem to want to talk about preventative measures or the causes of the anxiety.

Apologies for the long post. It sometimes just helps to get it all down on paper as a way of offloading things.

Cheers!

Brendan


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