Zoloft Withdrawal or Flu?

[Steven0422]

So I started setraline(zoloft) about 11 months ago for panic disorder and depression. It gave me diarrhea at first for about a week and I had no appetite. Well, that eventually went away. About a month or so in, I started noticing slight changes. By about month 4, things were back to normal but I was still slightly anxious generally. It was never fully fixed but I'd say it masked the problem pretty well and I could do stuff again and I felt happy most days. Well about a month ago, I had a random episode of nausea followed by a panic attack, I went to sleep, woke up, and felt fine. After that,  that started to happen about once every week or 2 for the next month. Last week, I realized I hasn't been eating as much as normal due to my poor appetite and frequent nausea. One day, I forgot to take my medicine, and the day after I just didn't. The third day of not taking my medicine, I ate more than I have in a very long time and couldn't get enough good. Keep in mind, I'm pretty small for my age. I'm a 16 year old male, 5'7 and about 130 pounds. After that day I was happy and still hungry. I stayed up that whole night and decided I needed to take my medicine because it'd been too long so I took it. About an hour after taking it, I got very hot and nauseous and had multiple panic attacks over about a 3 hour period. I then shook until I fell asleep. After I woke up that afternoon, I was still feeling slightly nauseous but nothing terrible. I decided I was not taking my medicine at all anymore. Anyways, I'm now going on my 3rd day with no medicine and I still am nauseous on and off through out the day with no appetite.  I also feel very anxious and isolated. I don't know what to do anymore. I read that the medicine only stays in your body for 26 hours but takes 5.6 days to completely dissappear from your system.  My question now is do I wait that 5.6 days and see if it gets better? And if it doesn't, then what do I do? My biggest issue is I have a rough time with nausea and that causes a decent amount of my panic attacks. I feel as if it's a lose lose situation but I need some input from someone who can help

[ChannahBracha]

If something was giving me diarrhea for a WEEK, I'd stop taking it immediately! You have to research these drugs the shrinks try to give us. They have NO clue about the side effects unless they read it recently. Makes me mad! I hope your panic attacks are better, though, without that drug!

[Paxiled]

First, withdrawal isn't caused by the drug being in your system, it's caused by the drug not being in your system anymore.  These meds cause the brain to work differently than it does naturally, by directing serotonin in the brain to selected receptors and preventing its normal breakdown and evacuation so it can wash in the selected receptors longer.  When you stop any ssri other than Prozac, which stays in the system for about a month, most of it is gone within a very short time, and the receptors in the brain that have shut down because the brain sees them as no longer needed because of the drug blocking the flow of serotonin to them start to wake up again.  This isn't easy, and it can cause a lot of withdrawal symptoms.  These can go away quickly or last a very long time depending on the person.  You have an additional problem of being too young for these drugs -- your brain is still developing -- so they are only supposed to be used for you in severe circumstances and only for a short period of time while therapy or time heals the problem.  Stopping one of these drugs abruptly is a bad idea, though some will sail through it.  It's much safer to taper off of it slowly to minimize withdrawal by allowing the brain to adapt as slowly as it needs to with a taper suited to how you're reacting.  Second, these drugs almost never solve all our problems.  We still get nauseous sometimes.  We still get anxious sometimes.  Life goes on.  Nausea doesn't cause your panic attacks, the way you think does, but it's interesting your doctors haven't tried to figure out why you're getting nausea so often unless it's only been since you've been on the drug that it's been happening.  Before I ever got an anxiety problem I got nausea a lot -- kids often do -- but it never made me anxious.  Anxiety is a way of thinking about things.  We seldom know why we get that way, but when we do, we change, and things that didn't used to scare us do.  Now, your psychiatrist is the one you should be consulting if you want to stop the med -- he or she should be informed about how to do it safely and whether you're ready for it.  Some of them aren't so hot, so you have to be aware of this and not lose your critical thinking when you see a doctor, but they do this a lot.  Regular docs, if that's who is doing this, don't do it as often and don't study the drugs as much, and so aren't as good at it generally.  And I'm wondering if you're in therapy and if anyone sent you to therapy before putting you on medication at such a young age.  Peace.

[Paxiled]

Oh, and by the way, withdrawal is often called the Paxil flu.  It's called that because Paxil is known to have the highest rate of withdrawal of any antidepressant, so it got called that, but it can happen when stopping any antidepressant.  So it can feel just like the flu to stop one of these meds.  That reaction usually goes away within a couple of weeks.  The bad reactions are when you get new emotional problems from stopping a drug you didn't have before you started it.  But also keep in mind that if you needed the drug to begin with, stopping it without dealing with the underlying problem means the problem can come right back again.

[Steven0422]

Thank you so much! And yes, I seen a therapist and they agreed to put me on setraline. I had to start going to school online and I couldn't leave my house unless absolutely necessary. I had tried programs and everything but nothing worked until I started medicine.  I hated it at first but I must say it helped me overcome a lot. I'm gonna start taking it again and dealing with the nausea I just have a huge fear of throwing up but I can do this. Thank you so much for your help and advice!