[nana_]

I recently got off zoloft. i weaned off 100mg over the month of december because it felt.. wimpy, for a lack of a better word, and the side effects sucked so it just wasn’t worth it. As i weaned off i started wellbutrin. i’m currently on 300 mg of wellbutrin and i cant tell if it’s working yet, probably because it’s too soon, but also because i think i’m having some sort of withdrawals from the zoloft? Every time i went down in dosage I would have a couple bad days of being irritable, but it wasn’t that bad getting off. But now i’m on day 5 of being off completely and the past three or four days have been hell! I’ve been hallucinating and extremely paranoid and anxious. I’ve also had multiple vivid nightmares that i woke up screaming from, when I’m typically the kind who doesnt dream/remember their dreams. I don’t know if all this is because of getting of the zoloft? I can’t find much information when i google it, sadly, so if anyone has had experience getting off zoloft or just knows anything about it, please reply! i feel like i’m going crazy (well, even more crazy) and i just want to start feeling better again. I feel optimistic about wellbutrin but it’s hard to tell when the zoloft is making me feel so bad...

I should also say, i don’t think it’s the wellbutrin causing this because I got on and upped it on different weeks than i would lower my dose for zoloft and only when i lowered zoloft did i feel off. I’ve felt fairly neutral in terms of side effects from wellbutrin.

i suppose another question for the people who’ve been on wellbutrin: how do you like it? what were the side effects like?

Sorry if this is a lot of rambling nonsense, i’ve been so scatterbrained lately..

[Skeezyks]

Hello nana: I'm sorry you're having such a difficult experience. Unfortunately I can't really be of any help with this. But I noticed no one had replied to your post. So I thought I would. Perhaps some other PC members, who have had experiences with these med's will yet reply.

It's been a couple of days since you posted this. Hopefully you're doing better at this point. I probably don't need to mention that it would probably be a good idea to discuss the problems you're experiencing with your prescriber. I do recall, quite a few years ago now, after having had some surgery for which I was given morphine, having some really vivid nightmares. So I know how difficult these can be. I wish you well...

I'm on a high dose of zoloft (250mg) and I never plan to come off it as I've heard withdrawals are really bad. I know that sleep disturbances and nightmares are a common withdrawal symptom. Hopefully it gets better for you.

[marcoleap]

I weaned very slowly off Zoloft and still had withdrawal symptoms, including nightmares. However, I also had a recurrence of my depression and anxiety symptoms. It can be difficult to separate out withdrawal from recurrence. But in answer to your question, my experience with Zoloft has been that withdrawal can be hellish. I think it's the same for most SSRIs--someone I know was in the hospital for surgery and missed a week of his Paxil, and he had terrible nightmares. What you're experiencing doesn't sound unusual to me.

[nana_]

Thanks to everyone who replied!!! I really appreciate knowing this isn’t uncommon. It makes me feel a lot better... but now it’s the 9th and i’m still not doing much better. I’m not hallucinating or paranoid, but am now just so depressed and lethargic!! i’m going to try to move my appointment with my pdoc up to some time this week. hopefully that’ll help somehow... thanks for the replies, they’ve helped calm down my anxiety!!!

[JakeBH9]

I can't sleep on Zoloft and it's hell. The benefit has been great for my OCD, but none of the other SSRI's in existence have been that way for me. I've tried 26 meds, I'm done with the back and forth hunting and gathering berries from trees (just being silly). I've zoned in on what is worth it for me and honestly I'm a firm believer in moving doses around over time, changing medicines for different life events (even temporarily), and adjusting things even seasonally as I've found all those things have an impact and psychiatric meds (to me) shouldn't be you're on these drugs A,B,C all on these specific doses for the remainder of your life. I mean, I have no issue if you like that concept, but I personally like flexibility and the ability to tweak things around if needed (even going off medicines for a specific duration of time).