Did anyone not experience side effects?

[Sparkling_Fairy]

I’ve been contemplating going on anti anxiety medication for 8 years now. But I keep holding off, mainly out of fear of side effects.
My anxiety levels are extremely high right now and I can barely cope, let alone if they get worse.
I’m dealing with a lot of nausea right now and I worry they are just going to make it worse.

However I have a friend who took them for a year and said she didn’t have a single side effect.

I know people would mostly post about side effects, rather than not having any side effects.
So I just wanted to hear if there were any people on here that took them and had no side effects.

[panic_down_under]

Not everyone experiences side-effect and most only develop mild ones. It is the few who do have severe responses that mostly post in support groups. Plus, not all side-effects are necessarily due to the med. Expect to suffer greatly and an anxious mind is very capable of creating our worst nightmare for us even with sugar placebo pills. :weep:

The trick is to start on a low dose, no more than half the recommended starting dose, and to ramp it up by the same amount every week or so which should moderate side-effects severity. There are also ways of treating most initial side-effects. For example, ginger and/or vitamin B6 supplements can significantly ease nausea.

Have you discussed taking antidepressants (ADs) with your doctor? Is so, did the GP recommend a particular AD?

[Sparkling_Fairy]

Yeah, she put me on Setraline. I picked up the prescription today so will start then tomorrow.
She prescribed me 50mg, but wants me to start on 25mg for 5 days.
Does that sound too high?

[panic_down_under]

The recommended sertraline starting dose for anxiety is 25mg. The rule of thumb for dose increases (or decreases) is to allow 5 times the half-life of the med between adjustments as it takes about that long for blood plasma levels to settle to a steady-state. Raising the dose sooner may increase side-effects severity, but delaying it won't significantly reduce them. Sertraline has a half-life of about 24 hours so upping the dose after 5 days is spot on. Sounds like your GP knows her stuff. Not all do unfortunately. :sad:

[Sparkling_Fairy]

Thanks!
I guess my only concern is serotonin syndrome because I take sumatriptan at least 3 times a week.
My pharmacist wasn’t sure I should take an SSRI, but my GP didn’t seem worried.

I did Google it and while there’s an interaction warning for serotonin syndrome, it does say the chances of it are really low. Guess I’ll just have to see

[panic_down_under]

Thanks!
I guess my only concern is serotonin syndrome because I take sumatriptan at least 3 times a week.
My pharmacist wasn’t sure I should take an SSRI, but my GP didn’t seem worried.

To repeat from my previous post, your GP knows her stuff. Your pharmacist's data base, OTOH, :sad:. Not their fault even the WHO, FDA and UK MHRA perpetuate a lot of male bovine excreta about serotonin syndrome/toxicity (SS/ST).

The chances of developing serotonin syndrome by taking a SSRI and sumatriptan are infinitesimally small to zero. Not my opinion, but that of one of the two leading experts on the syndrome, Dr Ken Gillman (http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=ea6KeD0AAAAJ&hl=en) who used to spend a large part of his semi retirement trying to correct this misinformation until the futility of it all became overwhelming (he details some of it here (https://psychotropical.com/serotonin-toxicity-and-5-ht3-antagonists/)). He explains why taking SSRIs and triptans such as sumatriptan almost certainly cannot trigger SS/ST in a 2009 paper: Triptans, Serotonin Agonists, and Serotonin Syndrome (Serotonin Toxicity): A Review (https://headachejournal.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1526-4610.2009.01575.x) (PDF).

You're more likely to be hit by the proverbial bus on the way to/from the pharmacy than to develop serotonin syndrome.

[Sparkling_Fairy]

OMG, this is awesome information. Thank you so much!!!