The best way to stop taking your medication is not by abruptly stopping, it's by slowly tapering the medication while under a doctor's supervision. No two people will respond to tapering off SSRIs the same way.
Stopping sertraline abruptly may result in one or more of the following withdrawal symptoms: irritability, nausea, feeling dizzy, vomiting, nightmares, headache, and/or paresthesias (prickling, tingling sensation on the skin). Depression is also a part of bipolar illness.
Zoloft (sertraline), like many other serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), is fairly well known for resulting in a discontinuation syndrome if you stop taking it suddenly. This is, in part, because Zoloft has a short half life.
Sertraline has a relatively short half-life of approximately 24 hours and has a moderate risk of causing withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms may occur a few days after a person begins to taper their dose and may last for 1–3 weeks.
If you forget to take your tablets for a few days, you may start getting your old symptoms back, or get withdrawal symptoms (feeling dizzy or shaky, sleep problems [including difficulty sleeping and intense dreams], feeling irritable or anxious, feeling or being sick, and headaches).
Usually, sertraline's dose is gradually reduced over around four weeks. A sample taper schedule is reducing the dose by 50 mg every 5–7 days to a final dose of 25–50 mg before the drug is stopped.
To further reduce the dose 25mg (half a 50mg tablet) every other day; 25mg every 3 days is not advisable as after 3 days the sertraline will have dropped to low levels risking discontinuation and initiation symptoms.
He notes, however, that SSRI's have been in use for some 25 years and there is no evidence of brain damage or a negative impact on intellectual capacity.
Does your brain go back to normal after antidepressants?
"The fact that antidepressant withdrawal can be so prolonged suggests that the drug has changed the brain and that those changes are taking a very long time to return to normal and it may be the case that sometimes they don't go back to normal."
The researchers said that although sertraline did not seem to have a strong impact on depressive symptoms, it did result in “clinically important” improvements in patients with depression, such as reduced anxiety symptoms, better mental health related quality of life, and self reported improvements in mental health.
For some people who take an SSRI such as Prozac (fluoxetine) or Zoloft (sertraline), one of these possible side effects is weight gain. Research suggests that the amount of weight typically gained while on an SSRI is modest.
What are the benefits of coming off antidepressants?
Besides easing the transition, tapering the dose decreases the risk that depression will recur. In a Harvard Medical School study, nearly 400 patients (two-thirds of them women) were followed for more than a year after they stopped taking antidepressants prescribed for mood and anxiety disorders.
The long-term effects of sertraline on the brain can go far beyond discontinuation syndrome, causing physical changes like weight fluctuation and problems with your sex drive.
Sertraline Reduce gradually over a minimum of 4 weeks; 50 mg every 5–7 days to final dose of 25–50 mg. Nefazodone No recommendations, as reports of withdrawal are rare.
3.4. Meta-Analysis. In the main analysis, a total of five studies evaluated the risk between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) use and development of dementia. SSRI use is significantly associated with an increased risk of dementia when compared with nonuse.
However, drinking alcohol on sertraline, like other antidepressants, has the potential to exacerbate the following side effects of Zoloft: Nausea. Diarrhea. Tremor.
The dose regimen for sertraline in the treatment of depression has been well established. The starting dose, 50 mg/day, is the usually effective therapeutic dose, and the optimal dose when considering both efficacy and tolerability for most patients.
What is Considered a High Dose of Sertraline? A normal dosage is sertraline 50mg to sertraline 100 mg per day, which is typically prescribed to adults as a treatment for depression and some anxiety disorders. Currently, the highest dose of Zoloft approved by the FDA is 200mg per day.
Generally, individuals taking sertraline will need to avoid nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like naproxen, aspirin, ibuprofen; blood thinners; and other medications that increase serotonin levels. Too much serotonin can cause serotonin syndrome.
Certain drugs for certain conditions—including high cholesterol medications like lovastatin (Mevacor) and rosuvastatin (Crestor), and depression medications like sertraline (Zoloft)—can be split without reducing drug efficacy or causing negative side effects.
How long you will need to take sertraline. Once you feel better you will probably continue to take sertraline for several more months. Most doctors recommend that you take antidepressants for 6 months to a year after you no longer feel depressed. Stopping before that time can make depression come back.
How do you know if you are ready to come off antidepressants?
The longer you have taken your medication, the slower you might want to cut down. Current recommendations for reducing the dose of an antidepressant are: If treatment has lasted less than eight weeks, stop over 1-2 weeks. If a treatment has lasted 6-8 months, cut down over 6-8 weeks.
If you have been taking sertraline for up to about two months: If you take sertraline 150mg a day or more: Drop to 100mg a day for about 2 weeks; • Then drop to 50mg a day for about 2 weeks, then stop.