Last April (2011), I started taking Zoloft (sertraline) 50 mg. After about 3 weeks, I started getting a very strange side-effect. Every day, I would get an episode of what I call “zero”. I'll do my best to describe it.
It starts with a tremor. For several hours my hands would shake, usually to the point where simple tasks like typing became very difficult and handwriting totally impossible. The tremors would come on pretty fast, plateau for a few hours, and then slowly subside. Then I'd be more or less back to normal for a few hours. But that's just the eye of the storm.
After those few hours of being more or less normal, my brain would, over a period of maybe 10 minutes, turn off. For several hours, I would be comatose. Aside from the occasional fleeting thought, there was nothing. No thoughts. No feelings or emotions. No drive or ability to get up and do anything. Even blinking required all the effort in the world, a feat I would only achieve every few minutes on average. Usually I'd end up sitting in my chair, locked into a fixed position, staring mindlessly at a blank wall for four straight hours, barely able to even blink. This storm is “zero”.
I never found anything that could help with the episodes.
When I put two and two together and realized what was causing this, I immediately switched to fluoxetine 40 mg (which I took daily for a month and then sporadically for the next 8 months, with a month of vilazodone substituted in). The problem is, “zero” was a withdrawal symptom as well. Over the course of about two months, it went from every day to most days to maybe once or twice a week. My last episode was 8 months after stopping Zoloft, at which point the episodes, just as strong as before, were happening every few weeks. I never figured out what triggered them.
A few months ago (~ month 14 off Zoloft, 5 off all SSRIs), I developed tremors again, but not the comatose state. They were occasional at first, but the last few weeks have become nearly constant. (My hands are trembling even as I write this.) The tremors are usually low-grade but some days get almost as bad as before. Strangely, they become totally unmanageable when doing certain unrelated things.
There was no precipitating event or medication change that could have started them, although I can think of a few things that roughly coincide with them becoming much more frequent (switching from temazepam to alprazolam, tacking on mirtazapine).
Can anyone make any sense of this? Has anyone ever heard of anything even remotely like this? How can something be both a side-effect and a withdrawal symptom that never ends? Did those 3 weeks on Zoloft permanently damage me?
It starts with a tremor. For several hours my hands would shake, usually to the point where simple tasks like typing became very difficult and handwriting totally impossible. The tremors would come on pretty fast, plateau for a few hours, and then slowly subside. Then I'd be more or less back to normal for a few hours. But that's just the eye of the storm.
After those few hours of being more or less normal, my brain would, over a period of maybe 10 minutes, turn off. For several hours, I would be comatose. Aside from the occasional fleeting thought, there was nothing. No thoughts. No feelings or emotions. No drive or ability to get up and do anything. Even blinking required all the effort in the world, a feat I would only achieve every few minutes on average. Usually I'd end up sitting in my chair, locked into a fixed position, staring mindlessly at a blank wall for four straight hours, barely able to even blink. This storm is “zero”.
I never found anything that could help with the episodes.
When I put two and two together and realized what was causing this, I immediately switched to fluoxetine 40 mg (which I took daily for a month and then sporadically for the next 8 months, with a month of vilazodone substituted in). The problem is, “zero” was a withdrawal symptom as well. Over the course of about two months, it went from every day to most days to maybe once or twice a week. My last episode was 8 months after stopping Zoloft, at which point the episodes, just as strong as before, were happening every few weeks. I never figured out what triggered them.
A few months ago (~ month 14 off Zoloft, 5 off all SSRIs), I developed tremors again, but not the comatose state. They were occasional at first, but the last few weeks have become nearly constant. (My hands are trembling even as I write this.) The tremors are usually low-grade but some days get almost as bad as before. Strangely, they become totally unmanageable when doing certain unrelated things.
There was no precipitating event or medication change that could have started them, although I can think of a few things that roughly coincide with them becoming much more frequent (switching from temazepam to alprazolam, tacking on mirtazapine).
Can anyone make any sense of this? Has anyone ever heard of anything even remotely like this? How can something be both a side-effect and a withdrawal symptom that never ends? Did those 3 weeks on Zoloft permanently damage me?