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firecall10/12/20242 repliesview on HN

Thats exactly the problem I'm having!

Working with my GP to titrate off Sertraline (Zoloft) at the moment.

My GP, like many others, wasnt really aware of the issues with getting off the drugs!

I describe the brain zaps as like a wave of electricity.

Like a Sci-Fi pulsing wave. As if i've got some sort of giant capacitor discharging in my brain.

The sort of thing from a 50s Sci-Fi movie thats a tower of electricity, glowing and pulsing and radiating an electrical light show!

Exactly the sort of thing that might re-animate Frankenstein!

It's not painful as such, but it's debilitating and causes you to literally pause and make a sharp intake of breath.

I hate being on the bloody things. Wish I'd never started them. CBT is much more effective in the long term, for me. YMMV.

I find SSRIs kill my motivation and creativity.

I'd really suggest anyone think twice before assuming these pills, that GPs dish out like candy, are an easy and consequence free solution!


Replies

TexanFeller10/12/2024

Someone close to me is doing the same. Sertraline isn't easily available in tiny dose increments useful for weaning off gradually, and its half life isn't very long, so missing or reducing a dose is almost immediately noticeable for some people. A strategy that's helped is cross-titrating and switching to Prozac. Because Prozac has a massively longer half life it's a much smoother ride while you're gradually reducing it.

show 1 reply
wruza10/12/2024

I hate being on the bloody things. Wish I'd never started them. CBT is much more effective in the long term, for me. YMMV. I find SSRIs kill my motivation and creativity.

That’s forbidden knowledge. For some reason they tend to just write you a recipe and see ya in a year, good luck with collateral damage to your life.

SSRIs get advertised as making you indifferent to bad things, well, you become indifferent to all things. Like a vegetable. It’s an amplitude modulator, not a negative cut off. I wonder how much that correlates with “psychotypes” and general development, because it almost feels like you become an average normal person, and not in a good sense. Blind, dumbed (not dumb but unmotivated), indifferent, uninterested. Just living through a life with a sort of a brainfog. Maybe SSRIs show success in large enough groups for which this is a natural state??

Also you can’t come. Ever watched The Fist of Rage?

Oh and if you hate bloody things, you’ll hate to cancel these much more :). Brain zaps are not the worst, it feels like all your psyche gets barely hinged together for quite a while. Like a wood house with every joint shaken a little for slack.

I'd really suggest anyone think twice before assuming these pills, that GPs dish out like candy, are an easy and consequence free solution!

Full agree.