Hi there, just want to let people know my experience. I started sertraline for severe anxiety on the 28th June. I started at 25mg for the first week then went up to 50mg. Okay, so the first week was good, no increase in anxiety or other adverse affects...then into the second week I started to get really bad headaches and problems with my near vision, sore jaw, sore shoulders weird sensations in my legs, no appetite, insomnia, bad fatigue, this all made get health anxiety which I don't normally suffer from, started thinking I had a brain tumour, ms, mnd, you name it, I thought I had it! I realised that the symptoms were side affects and so was the heightened anxiety, but It's hard convincing yourself that.
This carried on until about the 6th week then I started to notice a small difference in the way I was feeling, the side affects had more or less gone, I wasn't so tired, started feeling a bit more positive, started laughing more, felt more positive about the future...I was still suffering bad insomnia though so I asked the doctor about this and he has increased my dose to 100mg, I've been on that for a week now and it's been great sleeping better, feeling better, probably the best I have felt in a few years....I'm so glad I didn't give up on them in the early days. I hope this helps anyone who may need some encouragement.