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New to antidepressants, advice and help please :)

Hi :smile: I'm starting antidepressants (Sertraline) tomorrow and i'm nervous about it all. What are your experiences with antidepressant medication?

Also, i'm going on holiday in December which is two months away, but i don't want to take the medication with me, and so i want to stop taking it then. I don't know what to do about it, i don't think my doctor would reduce my dosage for a month only to increase it back again a few weeks later..

And the doctor said i need to take it for a minimum of six months. Does that mean it doesn't have to be permanent? I don't want to take the drugs for years. I'm not seriously depressed, i'm in the grey area where i feel depressed but i don't have suicidal thoughts (or act on them anyway...) so i don't need to be dependent on them.

I need advice about 1) taking them, and 2) stopping for a week or two and it being okay.
I don't want to take them on a plane or in the airport, i've decided that i really don't want to. I don't know what to do :frown:
Original post by snowystarks
Hi :smile: I'm starting antidepressants (Sertraline) tomorrow and i'm nervous about it all. What are your experiences with antidepressant medication?

Also, i'm going on holiday in December which is two months away, but i don't want to take the medication with me, and so i want to stop taking it then. I don't know what to do about it, i don't think my doctor would reduce my dosage for a month only to increase it back again a few weeks later..

And the doctor said i need to take it for a minimum of six months. Does that mean it doesn't have to be permanent? I don't want to take the drugs for years. I'm not seriously depressed, i'm in the grey area where i feel depressed but i don't have suicidal thoughts (or act on them anyway...) so i don't need to be dependent on them.

I need advice about 1) taking them, and 2) stopping for a week or two and it being okay.
I don't want to take them on a plane or in the airport, i've decided that i really don't want to. I don't know what to do :frown:


Hi there snowystarks,

I'm sorry to hear that you're at the stage of depression which requires medication; depression really ****ing sucks (to understate things!).

Sertraline is in fact the only common antidepressant that I haven't tried, however, it is an SSRI class antidepressant so the side effects are similar to other drugs in that class, such as citalopram and fluoxetine. Expect to experience things like nausea, headaches, maybe problems sleeping or having weird dreams, this is all normal and should dissipate within a few weeks. You may have been told this but antidepressants can take 6 - 8weeks to properly "kick in". Another thing is that the first antidepressant people try only has about a 40% success rate - you may need to try other antidepressants before you find one that works well for you while balancing the side effects of it. Personally, it took me 9 before I found the one that works for me, however I've been depression free thanks to it for about 3 years now which is pretty sweet and definitely worth, imo, all the side effects it took to get to this stage.

Generally for first episode depression doctors recommend staying on the medication for 6months and then gradually withdrawing in order to minimize the chance of depression recurring. The longer you've been depressed the longer you may have to take medication for.

As for stopping for your holiday, I would really advise against it. While antidepressants aren't addictive, if suddenly stopped they do often have withdrawal symptoms such as nausea, headaches, insomnia, brain zaps, dizziness - and quite a lot more and not to mention recurrence of depression. It's generally advised to come off them slowly with the help of your doctor.

I hope this helps. If you have any questions, just ask. Good luck! :smile:

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