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.

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.

[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, . 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 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). 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 (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!!!