YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hello everybody,

I have a question and I think I just might be making too big a deal out of it but I wanted to ask a couple people before I did anything.

I have recently been diagnosed with depression and my doctor put me on sertraline which is a generic of Zoloft. It was really hard for me to go to the doctor and tell him about how I was feeling, mostly because I didn't even understand it myself, but now that I've been on it for a few days I've noticed some side effects that I don't know if I should be concerned about.

Mostly they are as follows:
Tingling in the scalp, face, arms etc
Jittery feeling and impulses to move (this mostly manifests in leg bouncing when sitting)

I think that emotionally things are a little better, I don't' feel as overwhelmed emotionally but it's hard to feel better when all these physical sensations keep bothering me.

Should I call my doctor early? My next appointment is in a month.

Thanks.
MusicalRaven

I know exactly how you feel. I've been on sertraline for about a month and a half now. The jittery feeling/impulses will decrease after your body gets used to the drug; it took me about 3.5 weeks. I'm taking 100mg now and although I don't feel like this drug has made life changing improvements with my depression/anxiety, I do believe it has helped me move in the right direction.

There isn't all that much that I know about this drug so I would love to hear more about others' experiences as well.

Update: I got so anxious on Sertraline that my doctor took me off of it. I also couldn't sleep and everything was just getting worse.

So now I'm on 20 mg of Prozac. Doesn't seem to be doing anything but at least i'm not having horrible side effects.