☼ HopefulDawn: Immediate adverse reaction to Sertraline

[HopefulDawn]

HopefulDawn

 

My medication and health history before I took sertraline just in case it is relevant. I realise I might be recognised by some of this but I feel if my experience can help others and possibly help research it is worth it.

. Have mild athsma but rarely took inhalers.

. Took antihistamine certraline 1 per day for allergic rhinitis for a number of years.

. Took cocodamol fairly soon before starting sertraline.

. Have a mild case of cerebral palsy from birth. spastic hemiplegia

. Autistic (aspergers type) 

 

Brief overview of when things happened and symptoms:

 January 2018: Was struggling with a breakup, had an anxiety and issues getting to sleep; I really was hoping for counselling or someone to talk to and I believe that would have helped me but instead was given sertraline. First day I took it I was fine, second day I took it I was fine and on the 3rd day morning I began feeling unwell. My jaw started biting together on its own (like when your very cold but much more forceful), I was having numbness in different body parts, had mydriasis (really dialated pupils) I felt like I was dying in a way and I suppose that was when my personality was changed and my emotions changed. My sense of time altered. Began having movement issues where my body would freeze up and I couldnt carry out actions as my body would stop as if I was playing musical statues. Weird feelings when I moved sometimes and weird kind of pain in my body which was very uncomfortable. Feelings of terror. Emotional lability where I could not control my emotions they would just happen.Twitches.

 

Went back to the dr: was offered propanolol but I refused it not wanting to take any more drugs. Got an MRI on my nerves as I thought I was developing MS but that wasn't the case. 

 

April 2018: I believe I developed depression which I had never had before; this lasted until January 2019. During this time I was having waves of feeling uncomfortably physically and also spells of emotional lability, movement issues and some others. Each day they would be less severe and less frequent though. During this time I pushed myself to keep busy a lot even though I could not feel positive about things as much. If I always did something like drawing or talking to a friend it would keep me distracted. 

 

I will not go into all the symptoms because there were sooo many. All of these things occurred in waves and windows pretty much like how a lot of you guys experience things. Slowly things got better and most have gone away

 

2019 I was back at uni but I had to take a year out as I am not as resilient physically anymore and get cognitive symptoms.If I do too much symptoms come back. Before I took sertraline I would not have considered the things I did as too much. My grades dropped as I kept having fatigue, difficulty completing actions, weird feeling skin and weird pains. I am hoping to go back to complete the year September 2020 but I feel it will be quite a struggle.

April 2020 I feel as if my personality is back 100% which kind of seemed to happen overnight.

 

I decided to join as I am still having issues mainly fatigue, weird feelings/pain in my skin and through my body, sometimes internal vibrations and tremors if I do too much (too much being walking to the shop and carrying shopping which I used to have no problem with, doing too much fitness), sometimes muscle stiffness and twitches, heavy feeling limbs, I seem to get worse with exercise, often delayed and I thought perhaps i'm developing chronic fatigue, my mum thinks I have signs of fibromyalgia but now I think it is still side effects from this drug. 

I still get cognitive issues sometimes which makes me worry I won't be able to go back to uni and also feelings of terror but thankfully they are much less frequent.

 

Official diagnosis from the dr now is: movement disorder due to anxiety 😕 however my anxiety has basically gone now so I now know it is not only anxiety at all it is definitely physical.

 

Thanks for reading I hope this helps someone

Edited May 22, 2020 by Gridley

[Gridley]

Welcome to SA, HopefulDawn.

 

As you recognized, you had an adverse reaction to the Sertraline, which means that the drug is basically poison to your system.  Your body tried to reject it and in so doing your system was thrown into chaos.  The symptoms you experienced in April, 2018 and 2019 and currently,  including depression, cognitive issues, and fatigue,  are typical adverse reaction symptoms.  You were very wise to refuse the proponolol.

 

That's great that your personality has returned.  From your description, you have weathered the worst of it, though as you know you still have some healing to do.  The damage is not permanent and you will continue to heal.  Moving forward, I would be gentle with yourself.  Strenuous exercise is often overstimulating and intensifies symptoms.  A gentle walk in nature would work better.  Avoid caffeine, sugar and alcohol and, insofar as is possible, stress.  

 

We don't recommend a lot of supplements on SA, as many members report being sensitive to them due to our over-reactive nervous systems, but two supplements that we do recommend are magnesium (glycinate is a good form) and omega 3 (fish oil). Many people find these to be calming to the nervous system. 

 

Magnesium, nature's calcium channel blocker 

 

Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) 

 

Add in one at a time and at a low dose in case you do experience problems.

 

The following link depicts the healing process very well.

 

Video:  Healing From Antidepressants - Patterns of Recovery

 

This is your Introduction topic, where you can ask questions and connect with other members.  We're glad you found your way here.

 

 

 

 

 

[ChessieCat]

I've moved your post about surgery.  Here's the link surgery-and-anesthesia

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by ChessieCat

[HopefulDawn]

I'm getting bloods done soon after I started having a bought of fatigue and internal vibration feeling not much new that sometimes happens; I had gone to the shop and after I come back I developed a tremor in one of my hands and my shopping wasn't that heavy. It lasted until the next day where it went away but it would be a tremor that was like if you have carried heavy things a lot. I booked it back in April.

 

I also sometimes get times I wake up in the night and feel like my head is buzzy and my body feels strange and I've realised I should not get out of bed when I feel like that else my heart beats very fast and I get the shakes.  I said to the Dr I am not looking for any medicine to treat the symptoms, I just want to find out what the cause is.  If my bloods are okay then I know what the cause is, most likely still symptoms from the adr. I did not realise this is likely the cause until recently. I thought perhaps I was developing an autoimmune condition or another condition but reading other peoples experiences it is likely just the fact it can take a long time before your body goes back to how it was before. 

 

I realised I might still have periods where I don't feel well and then get better again but it's not because of any other condition. I'll update this when I know my blood results.

 

Should I tell my dr or the nurse who draws the blood about this? I know not many gps or other medical professionals know about this kind of thing or if they do know they deny it. Thanks.

[Gridley]

2 hours ago, HopefulDawn said:

Should I tell my dr or the nurse who draws the blood about this? I know not many gps or other medical professionals know about this kind of thing or if they do know they deny it. Thanks.

 

Whatever you choose.  They won't know anything about it.

[HopefulDawn]

Could I be developing a mild form of the chronic fatigue condition?

I have been feeling well for a few days but half hour ago I got the weird feeling in my skin and body and then a headache only for a few seconds and now I feel like I have brain fog again. I can't think as clearly. My movements and my reactions feel a bit slower also than usual; I can't react immediatly; and it just came on suddenly.

 

I am not sure if this is because of the drug or if it is something else? From you guys experience does it seem like it may still be from my adr or something else? Thanks.

[SandCastle]

I’m glad I found this because it sounds a lot like my story between the immediate reaction to taking the drug that caused pain and muscle problems all over to stopping the drug and having withdraw symptoms like twitches, more pain, buzzing in my head, etc. It’s interesting that your mom suggested fibromyalgia because I thought the same thing about myself maybe a week or so after starting Sertraline. It was the only thing I could find that matched my symptoms at that point. I now know that it was a reaction to the drug and also a symptom of withdrawal. It also makes me wonder how many have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia as a result of taking these drugs since there seems to be no actual test for fibromyalgia. How are you doing these days?

[HopefulDawn]

On 10/10/2020 at 4:53 PM, SandCastle said:

I’m glad I found this because it sounds a lot like my story between the immediate reaction to taking the drug that caused pain and muscle problems all over to stopping the drug and having withdraw symptoms like twitches, more pain, buzzing in my head, etc. It’s interesting that your mom suggested fibromyalgia because I thought the same thing about myself maybe a week or so after starting Sertraline. It was the only thing I could find that matched my symptoms at that point. I now know that it was a reaction to the drug and also a symptom of withdrawal. It also makes me wonder how many have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia as a result of taking these drugs since there seems to be no actual test for fibromyalgia. How are you doing these days?

I went and got my bloods done, expecting them to find nothing but to my suprised they said I had low vitamin D which affected my calcium making my calcium a bit low and also it affected my thyroid making it slightly low so I was given vitamin D supplements which is likely to improve all those things.

 

I started taking them they are fultium D3 brand at 3200IU. At first when I started taking them I felt boosted like I had a lot of thoughts too fast however it completely stopped my twitches and vibration feeling. I am meant to take them daily but at first I could only take 2 days in a row because of how I felt but then I started to not have weird feelings taking them anymore so I can now take them daily without feeling bad. I feel they have helped

 

It is possible I had low vitamin D for a long time as I have avoided the sun over the years. The sertraline drug effects could have ended earlier and these other residual things were from the low vit d, low calcium and low thyroid?

 

My aches and pains are almost gone and I now do not have the same degree of fatigue, also it has vastly improved how clearly I think, I don't feel as foggy headed anymore. I get little twitches in my muscles still but they are less frequent.

 

My dr has since re-check my blood and said my vitamin d is now quite high and I can stop taking the suppliments but when I did that I started to get fatigue, twitiching muscles and aching again so I have started taking them again. Perhaps in January 2021 I will get a lower dose to maintain it? Overall i'm very pleased but was not expecting this at all. I only have another weeks worth of the high dose vitamins and I am yet too know if all my symptoms will return when I stop them.

 

I'm thinking I could have had this underlying issue for a while since I went to my dr in 2017 with fatigue and slower thinking and I was told I was okay 😕

 

I wonder if this would help some of you guys? I know not everyone can tolerate it though, I couldn't take vitamin d daily at first without feeling strange and too wired.

 

Forgot to add I no longer get ill from exercise except for when I haven't taken the vitamin d for a week or so. This has been wonderful

 

 

[Paxil3days]

On 5/22/2020 at 7:33 AM, HopefulDawn said:

HopefulDawn

 

My medication and health history before I took sertraline just in case it is relevant. I realise I might be recognised by some of this but I feel if my experience can help others and possibly help research it is worth it.

. Have mild athsma but rarely took inhalers.

. Took antihistamine certraline 1 per day for allergic rhinitis for a number of years.

. Took cocodamol fairly soon before starting sertraline.

. Have a mild case of cerebral palsy from birth. spastic hemiplegia

. Autistic (aspergers type) 

 

Brief overview of when things happened and symptoms:

 January 2018: Was struggling with a breakup, had an anxiety and issues getting to sleep; I really was hoping for counselling or someone to talk to and I believe that would have helped me but instead was given sertraline. First day I took it I was fine, second day I took it I was fine and on the 3rd day morning I began feeling unwell. My jaw started biting together on its own (like when your very cold but much more forceful), I was having numbness in different body parts, had mydriasis (really dialated pupils) I felt like I was dying in a way and I suppose that was when my personality was changed and my emotions changed. My sense of time altered. Began having movement issues where my body would freeze up and I couldnt carry out actions as my body would stop as if I was playing musical statues. Weird feelings when I moved sometimes and weird kind of pain in my body which was very uncomfortable. Feelings of terror. Emotional lability where I could not control my emotions they would just happen.Twitches.

 

Went back to the dr: was offered propanolol but I refused it not wanting to take any more drugs. Got an MRI on my nerves as I thought I was developing MS but that wasn't the case. 

 

April 2018: I believe I developed depression which I had never had before; this lasted until January 2019. During this time I was having waves of feeling uncomfortably physically and also spells of emotional lability, movement issues and some others. Each day they would be less severe and less frequent though. During this time I pushed myself to keep busy a lot even though I could not feel positive about things as much. If I always did something like drawing or talking to a friend it would keep me distracted. 

 

I will not go into all the symptoms because there were sooo many. All of these things occurred in waves and windows pretty much like how a lot of you guys experience things. Slowly things got better and most have gone away

 

2019 I was back at uni but I had to take a year out as I am not as resilient physically anymore and get cognitive symptoms.If I do too much symptoms come back. Before I took sertraline I would not have considered the things I did as too much. My grades dropped as I kept having fatigue, difficulty completing actions, weird feeling skin and weird pains. I am hoping to go back to complete the year September 2020 but I feel it will be quite a struggle.

April 2020 I feel as if my personality is back 100% which kind of seemed to happen overnight.

 

I decided to join as I am still having issues mainly fatigue, weird feelings/pain in my skin and through my body, sometimes internal vibrations and tremors if I do too much (too much being walking to the shop and carrying shopping which I used to have no problem with, doing too much fitness), sometimes muscle stiffness and twitches, heavy feeling limbs, I seem to get worse with exercise, often delayed and I thought perhaps i'm developing chronic fatigue, my mum thinks I have signs of fibromyalgia but now I think it is still side effects from this drug. 

I still get cognitive issues sometimes which makes me worry I won't be able to go back to uni and also feelings of terror but thankfully they are much less frequent.

 

Official diagnosis from the dr now is: movement disorder due to anxiety 😕 however my anxiety has basically gone now so I now know it is not only anxiety at all it is definitely physical.

 

Thanks for reading I hope this helps someone

@HopefulDawn I did Paxil for 3 days and severe adverse reactions WDSymptoms after 2 months I have been feeling better, anxiety is disappearing, internal leg tremors on and off, head pressure lessening , 

 

I feel so heavy now, is this normal, and by when did you begin to recognize that your healing is not going to place you backwards anymore ? 

[HopefulDawn]

Hi @Paxil3days the heavy feeling took a really long time to go away and it would come and go for me; it took some months to get better, I remember feeling like my body took more effort to move and I would sweat more also and it just felt weird.

 

Around a year and a bit out I also found out that my vitamin D was low and the heavy feeling started to go away after I got supplements from the dr but I think at the point I started taking the vitamins it wasn't because of the SSRI anymore but the two things happened to blend in or so? At the beginning though I couldn't take the supplements every day like the told me because I felt like I was boosted or something and it was uncomfortable but it stopped twitching in my muscles and it eased my fatigue, but I don't know if it happened to be related or not to SSRI. My opinion would be not to take vitamin D or anything when you still have a lot of symptoms.

[HopefulDawn]

May 2021 update: I now have 0 symptoms whatsoever, my emotions and mood are back to how they were, no longer feeling terrified and afraid. I think at one point I had temporary anhedonia, it is gone now and I can enjoy things. I have 0 sensory problems, 0 gut issues, my vision is better. No more fatigue on exercise or if I do a lot, no more movement issues. My mind doesn't feel foggy anymore.

 

There was a while were I didn't believe it possible I would recover. I hope that everyone here will recover.

 

I went back to university having to defer the year due to symptoms in 2020. Thank you everyone for helping me and sharing and thanks to everyone who help with this website.

 

I plan on posting on the recovery section of forum.

[Paxil3days]

20 hours ago, HopefulDawn said:

May 2021 update: I now have 0 symptoms whatsoever, my emotions and mood are back to how they were, no longer feeling terrified and afraid. I think at one point I had temporary anhedonia, it is gone now and I can enjoy things. I have 0 sensory problems, 0 gut issues, my vision is better. No more fatigue on exercise or if I do a lot, no more movement issues. My mind doesn't feel foggy anymore.

 

There was a while were I didn't believe it possible I would recover. I hope that everyone here will recover.

 

I went back to university having to defer the year due to symptoms in 2020. Thank you everyone for helping me and sharing and thanks to everyone who help with this website.

 

I plan on posting on the recovery section of forum.

@HopefulDawn thank you so much for sharing . My symptoms are going away as well I , have a bit of head pressure feeling , does that go away as well ? Thank you so very much for sharing your life... helps me get through my struggle with this Adverse Reaction WD symptoms . Hopefully we all recover from these horrible medications !!!

[Paxil3days]

On 5/27/2020 at 4:53 AM, HopefulDawn said:

I'm getting bloods done soon after I started having a bought of fatigue and internal vibration feeling not much new that sometimes happens; I had gone to the shop and after I come back I developed a tremor in one of my hands and my shopping wasn't that heavy. It lasted until the next day where it went away but it would be a tremor that was like if you have carried heavy things a lot. I booked it back in April.

 

I also sometimes get times I wake up in the night and feel like my head is buzzy and my body feels strange and I've realised I should not get out of bed when I feel like that else my heart beats very fast and I get the shakes.  I said to the Dr I am not looking for any medicine to treat the symptoms, I just want to find out what the cause is.  If my bloods are okay then I know what the cause is, most likely still symptoms from the adr. I did not realise this is likely the cause until recently. I thought perhaps I was developing an autoimmune condition or another condition but reading other peoples experiences it is likely just the fact it can take a long time before your body goes back to how it was before. 

 

I realised I might still have periods where I don't feel well and then get better again but it's not because of any other condition. I'll update this when I know my blood results.

 

Should I tell my dr or the nurse who draws the blood about this? I know not many gps or other medical professionals know about this kind of thing or if they do know they deny it. Thanks.

Hey @HopefulDawn seems like our adverse reaction is very similar, I have to say going into month 4 I feel myself gradually healing and all my symptoms becoming less.
 

few questions for you: 

1. Currently I am not on any medication just doing fish oil supplement, Should I be worried tht months from now I will get blasted with all the symptoms and their intensity again? 
 

2. You may seem to be right about the 4 month mark from adverse reaction, the symptoms are slowly calming down , I guess what is next in this process ?

[RemeronHell]

On 5/16/2021 at 3:43 AM, HopefulDawn said:

May 2021 update: I now have 0 symptoms whatsoever, my emotions and mood are back to how they were, no longer feeling terrified and afraid. I think at one point I had temporary anhedonia, it is gone now and I can enjoy things. I have 0 sensory problems, 0 gut issues, my vision is better. No more fatigue on exercise or if I do a lot, no more movement issues. My mind doesn't feel foggy anymore.

 

There was a while were I didn't believe it possible I would recover. I hope that everyone here will recover.

 

I went back to university having to defer the year due to symptoms in 2020. Thank you everyone for helping me and sharing and thanks to everyone who help with this website.

 

I plan on posting on the recovery section of forum.

 

Good stuff @HopefulDawn .    Looking forward to reading the success story in the recovery section

[ChessieCat]

Because you're feeling better, I added our cheerful "here comes the sun" symbol ☼ to the title of your Intro topic, to show you're recovering.

 

Please continue to let us know how you're doing. I hope you will add your story to our Recovery Success Stories eventually!

 

Please see this topic:  How to write your success story

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by ChessieCat
added topic link

[Phoenixmama]

@HopefulDawn hi 🌞 how are you ?