alt Hacker NewsWould love to read this, but the site is down.
I weaned myself off of Sertraline and pursued OTC options just because the brain zaps and the yawns/drowsiness were so bad. Didn't matter what time of day I took it, didn't matter that the dosage was low. The brain zaps made me lose trust in my own faculties. These momentary, split-second losses of consciousness, where after each one, I'd have to spend another split-second reorienting myself to the environment, got way too disorienting. It also got worse the longer I was on it.
Finally weaned myself off and use SAM-e instead. No perceivable side-effects there. For anyone who doesn't know, SAM-e is an OTC supplement in the U.S. but the same chemical compound as one of the front-line antidepressants in Europe.
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BTW, I had some major heart palpitations on SAM-e. It may have been tied to Vitamin B-12 but that was a hypothesis. Just make sure to talk with your doc.
Site's back up. Good info, but I felt nauseous by the end of the article.
This was interesting:
> Perhaps the most disconcerting feature of the zaps is the jumpy lateral eye movements. “People actually hear their eyes move when they move their eyes from left to right. They almost feel a faint ‘whoosh’ sound in their heads,” Papp explained. “Sometimes, people feel as if the brain stops for a moment and reboots like a computer.”
I wouldn't say I could hear my eyes moving (!), but I definitely noticed that eye movements or a turn of the head could trigger a brain zap. That was one of the most disabling things, as it eventually led to a feeling of restricted freedom of movement and exploration.