Can a drug effect you weeks into taking it

[Notebook30]

I’ve been taking sertraline nearly 7 weeks and I never really thought it’s agreed with me but everyone has been saying to stick it out, it improves etc but I think I’m going to have to start weaning myself off of it and trying something new from my doctor.

I’ve been feeling really shaky, anxious, heart racing, panicky all day today and can’t sit still, I have been getting weird headaches the last week and muscle twitches. I think it might be the sertraline doing all this. It’s meant to relax me not make everything worse!

Does anyone know how long the weaning off process takes? I am on 100mg a day.

Obviously I will talk to my doctor but I need a rough idea of how long this will take to get out of my system.

[JCPrague]

Hello,

You have only taken it for 7 weeks, so you should be able to be off of it within 3 weeks. It does sound as if it does not agree with you. Too many bad side effects.

[Notebook30 in reply to JCPrague]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. That’s reassuring to know it should be out of my system in 3 weeks. Do you know if side effects can continue past this? I assume my doctor will then put me on a new drug maybe x

[JCPrague in reply to Notebook30]

The side effects will go away once the drug is out of your system. They will probably wean you off of it with a decreasing dose rather than stopping it abruptly. But since it has such bad side effects, maybe they will stop it abruptly. In that case it will be out of your system within a week.

[Notebook30]

Hello thanks for messaging! Yes sertraline is used for PTSD, anxiety, OCD etc. I feel it’s not really helped me at all. Some days maybe I feel a little better but overall it’s made all my symptoms much worse. I am glad you can relate at least. I don’t understand why it’s got worse now when everyone kept saying it would get better and the first few weeks are the worst. I feel really worried!

Do you mean symptoms will increase as I discontinue the drug? X

[_Alex_]

Yeah it's not impossible that you could get to 8 or 9 weeks and suddenly you feel an improvement.

You could get off it quite fast, especially if you are switching to another SSRI.