A few months ago I decided to change my Sertraline dose from 50mg to 100mg daily. This wasn’t a decision I took lightly and I am hopeful this video helps other people who might be struggling with the idea of changing their dosage.
Maybe he’s born with it maybe it’s surgery i don’t know if that’s a jingle to keep but either way welcome back to a happy change my name is alex and it is amazing to see you again after what feels like an absolute age we’re just about coming to the end of september 2020 so no matter when you watch this i want to kind of contextualize the gap between this video
And my last video essentially kovid has hit it hasn’t left us yet and it’s been really challenging if you’re watching this it’s likely that like me you’re dealing with anxiety and depression and have been affected negatively by the last few months health-wise perhaps mental health-wise physical health it could be that just the the changes in regime have really
Thrown you out of kilter and for me that’s certainly the case so massive apologies if you’ve been waiting for a new video i do absolutely appreciate that some people really really get a lot of support from these videos um i think in this scenario it was just a case of my own mental health my own mental well-being really took a nosedive in those um like early
Middle bits of of the covid lockdown and i just needed some time for myself to recover and make sure that i was back at full cylinder today however you will have noticed from the title of this video this is about my journey of moving from 50 milligram to 100 milligram if you’ve watched my previous videos you’ll know that i take sertraline daily to deal with my
Own mental health challenges so in my case that’s depression and general anxiety doing that alongside lifestyle changes has really improved my own well-being however there comes a time when we have to make a decision about the dosage and i went through that experience myself some months ago so in full disclosure i’m talking about a change to 100 milligram but
Actually i’ve been on 100 milligram now for probably um two to three months and that’s given me the opportunity to figure out whether it is the dose for me and what my next steps might be so firstly i would often speak about 50 milligram being the the right dose for me why did i decide to move to 100 milligram the answer is straightforward covered hit everything
Went to and it felt like i’d lost control of some of the things that i’d gained control over took me a while to kind of admit that perhaps i needed an increased dose and i did try and plod on but what i found was i was panicking at the things that used to trigger me i was emotional i was you know upset a lot of the time and it led me to a conclusion that perhaps
That the the 50 milligram dose in normal circumstances was working for me in the covid times it felt like i’d lost so much control that i needed something to kind of like bring me back onto the level that i was becoming accustomed to in terms of like my ability to deal with challenge so it wasn’t a decision i took lightly and in fact it was one that i fretted
Over really because i felt like i was taking a step back that i was admitting that maybe things weren’t as good as they needed to be and i felt like i was back in that position i remember being in a long time ago where you’re making that first call to the doctor to be able to kind of talk about your mental health and you have all of those notions of embarrassment
Or failure start to rear their head again so i guess i got stuck in that that moment again and speaking to the gp like they were just very straightforward about it like i said you know these are the things that happen in my life this is the thing that’s happening globally and how it’s affecting me and they were just like yeah great let’s try your 100 ml and
See how that goes so it couldn’t actually have been an easier transaction in terms of dealing with the doctor it was my own interpretation of like how that might go that just made it very difficult so as i said making the decision to increase your dose of any antidepressant can feel like a step back i got to the point actually where i realized how much of a good
Step it was it was showing me that um i was more conscious i was more aware of how i was supposed to feel and how i was currently feeling and i think that’s actually a real positive to come from this is i’m much more in tuned with my brain and my body and my well-being than i was a couple of years ago before i started this process so whilst my initial reaction
Was one of a bit of embarrassment perhaps amplified by the fact that there is a community around this channel and sometimes feeling like i’m a spokesperson for recovery rather than backward steps actually i realize that those bits are really important as well because we all have backward steps and it’s important that i share mine so yeah took a little bit of a
Nosedive spoke to the doctor got it sorted in terms of side effects there were some and in fact there are some that are worth talking about the main thing is like the stomach issues amplified i would say like i found it really difficult at the start to manage like eating properly and my own um stomach health like running to the toilet back to like how it was
In that first week of taking 50 milligram feeling really affected by that and that can be demoralizing if you feel like you’ve got a grip on life to suddenly feel like our upset stomach time again the other thing really was just like a moment of perhaps a week or two where i was moving between the 50 and 100 mil where i was probably a bit more vulnerable so it’s
Just worth bearing that in mind that if you are struggling perhaps with um your own ability to cope is bearing in mind that there’s going to be a rough patch or there might be a rough patch when you increase your dosage to have some support around you i think is really key to be open about the the medication that you’re under and to have conversations perhaps
With your your family and just let them know look this is the pill that i take i’m currently increasing the dose and these are the things that might happen in terms of changes that i had to make moving from 50 milligram to 100 milligram like the key one was i changed the time so i was taking 50 milligram at night i found that taking 100 milligram at night was
Leading to like um restlessness i was struggling to sleep i was waking up with a really upset stomach so i moved my dose earlier in the day so gradually went through like my tea time so like five six o’clock um all the way down to kind of mid afternoon and that seems to be like a space for me that works like i don’t really get many um negative effects with that
So that’s the only real change that i had to make in terms of the positive impact on me it took me back to that space i was in on a on 50 milligram really where i felt less less emotional or overly emotional rather about things that i didn’t need to be emotional about um i felt more in control of trigger situations so things that would normally send my anxiety
Skyrocketing didn’t impact me quite as much so essentially i felt like i was back in that zone where i was managing things a bit better i was able to recognize what was going on in my life in my health in my wealth in my well-being and start to take action a little bit and it’s not still not easy um but in a better position and i had been during the start and
Middle of covid where things were getting on top of me it felt like i was in that zone again of of control if you like that originally the 50 milligram uh circulating daily had given me so as i say this is a few months into 100 milligram and like 90 of the time things are fine i think like the other important bit to bear in mind is the medication takes the edge
Off like i plea i absolutely implore anyone watching this who is medicated to seek out talking therapy like make talking therapy your absolute priority like have counseling find a therapist whatever it is that you can do to get talking therapy like please please please make that your absolute priority because what you’ll find is that it’s the talking therapy
That that sorts out the the triggers it’s the talking therapy that um allows you to access those memories and and resolve uh resolve things in your head it’s the talking therapy that essentially is going to get you to a place of permanent improvement the medication is great for taking the edge off things but the challenge is removal of the medication can allow
You to slip back into those moments of of panic of anxiety and depression and i’m not saying that talking therapy is going to remove all of that from your life but for me right now i think it’s the bigger factor in getting better so make those lifestyle changes the good thing about taking search really is it frees up the space to make the lifestyle changes that
When you’re depressed you can’t make because you don’t have the impetus or the enthusiasm or the energy to do it when you’re taking a antidepressant you have an opportunity to resolve some of those things so make some lifestyle changes like a big one for me is i have finally essentially gone sober i have the occasional drink but i’m not reliant on alcohol as
A thing to get me through a tough day or to deal with stress anymore and i’ll make another video about how i finally finally made that change um i have spoken about it before but i’ve slipped in and out and i finally found a way that for me just works like i’m just i have zero craving for alcohol and i was someone who would drink every single day if i could in
Between bouts of sobriety so if you’re at a stage where you’re thinking about changing your dose perhaps you’re on 50 milligram and it’s not quite working you’re thinking about moving to 100 milligram i think talk to your doctor there’s definite benefits for me be aware that some of the side effects might rear their head again bear in mind that there might need to
Be some other changes in terms of like timing of dose etc that go with it but i want you to really really carefully consider the lifestyle changes and whether or not you’ve made the lifestyle changes you need to make in order to get better the big one is find a talking therapist so to find a counselor find someone even if it’s your gp that you want to just check
In and talk about talk about your feelings do that otherwise once you remove that medication things can start to fall apart as always i appreciate your time my name is alex this was a happy change i will see you on the next video which will be a link here and i’ll see you next time peace
Transcribed from video
50mg to 100mg of Sertraline Daily – Side Effects – Why I changed – How I feel now? By Alex Robb
