I missed a week

[Paul84]

Hi all, hope everyone is well. Ive been on Sertraline 50mg for 9 months but I missed about a week over the New Year as I was unwell and not fit enough to leave the house.

I'm beating myself up a bit that I should have made more of an effort to get my meds, but I guess what's done is done.

Has anyone missed a period like this and should I expect any negative repercussions from it?

I've been taking it again since but I've had an anxiety spike over the few weeks and I haven't been myself. Hard to tell whether it's linked or whether it's just winter blues/virus or general anxiety. I don't want to get out of bed in the morning (who does at the minute) I'm irritable, have muscle tension, headaches, fatigue etc...

I ideally want to stop taking this medication gradually but I'm concerned that I have made that process harder and more drawn out. Naturally this has now become my new HA obsession.

I have a telephone call with the GP to review the medication this week but I'm just looking for your experiences.

Thank you.

[Scissel]

I went abruptly off it in January - 100MG, and the symptoms become too much to bare, and I could feel myself 'slipping'; so, my APRN put me back on it for 2 months and I do feel more stable being on it. I think, for us, it's going to have to be very gradual discontinuation. Don't beet yourself up over it, though. Once I started back on it, in 2 days I started to feel better. I hope you feel better. Take care.

[Paul84]

I went abruptly off it in January - 100MG, and the symptoms become too much to bare, and I could feel myself 'slipping'; so, my APRN put me back on it for 2 months and I do feel more stable being on it. I think, for us, it's going to have to be very gradual discontinuation. Don't beet yourself up over it, though. Once I started back on it, in 2 days I started to feel better. I hope you feel better. Take care.

Thank you Scissel for your reply. Just my anxious mind looking for something new to latch onto. Hopefully things will start to level out.
Glad you're feeling a bit better.

[panic_down_under]

Ive been on Sertraline 50mg for 9 months but I missed about a week over the New Year as I was unwell and not fit enough to leave the house.

...Has anyone missed a period like this and should I expect any negative repercussions from it?

Missing doses for more than the occasional day should be avoided as it interrupts the mechanism by which ADs work and it can a while for it to restart and stabilize again.

Antidepressants have no direct effect on anxiety, or depression in the way say aspirin has on a headache. They work by stimulating the growth of new brain cells (neurogenesis) to replace cells killed, or prevented from growing by high brain stress hormone levels. The therapeutic response is produced by these new cells and the stronger interconnections they forge, not the meds directly, and they take time to bud, grow and mature. For more detailed explanations see: Depression and the Birth and Death of Brain Cells (PDF) and How antidepressant drugs act.

I've been taking it again since but I've had an anxiety spike over the few weeks and I haven't been myself. Hard to tell whether it's linked or whether it's just winter blues/virus or general anxiety. I don't want to get out of bed in the morning (who does at the minute) I'm irritable, have muscle tension, headaches, fatigue etc...

Did these symptoms begin during the week you weren't taking sertraline, or are they more recently?

I ideally want to stop taking this medication gradually but I'm concerned that I have made that process harder and more drawn out. Naturally this has now become my new HA obsession.

You are only taking a low dose so probably won't have significant issues weaning off it, but if HA is still a problem then now is not the time to be considering stopping, imo.

[Paul84]

Did these symptoms begin during the week you weren't taking sertraline, or are they more recently?

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I did start to feel these symptoms around that week without meds, so the logical part of me tells me it had an effect. The health anxiety started to spike after gawping into my mouth more than usual (I had a dental issue) I began bouncing from one alarming thing to another. I basically lost January. My HA is alot better, I've just got physical symptoms that I'm dealing with now