Started Zoloft (sertraline) three weeks ago for pain and I am trying to work out whether what I am feeling now is tolerance or something else.
Withdrawal symptoms are not the same as side effects, and conflating them wasted a year of my life.
What helped was writing down what I could physically do that day rather than a pain score. Numbers lie, function does not.
My doctor wants to separate tolerance from a genuine change in the underlying problem, which sounds sensible until you try to describe the difference in a ten minute appointment.
The first three weeks are worse than the condition and then it turns, which nobody says clearly enough.
Curious how others here structure the day around it.
Sleep first. Bad night, bad day, more symptoms. Fix that before changing anything else.
Function over score. Three weeks in on sertraline and it lines up.
The last ten percent of a taper takes as long as the first ninety. Nobody says so until you are in it.
Same shape here, different drug. The thing that helped was documenting the refusal rather than re-arguing it. They refer rather than write.
Is it normal to feel worse before better? Nobody told me that.
My pharmacist has become my actual doctor and I am at peace with it.
Worth asking what specifically was measured. Pain scores move with mood and function does not.
Careful with attribution. You changed the timing, the dose and the season. That is three variables. Currently on sertraline myself.
Sorry for the basic question, but how do you actually start one of these diaries?
Print the page.
My pharmacist has become my actual doctor and I am at peace with it.
Ask for the longer appointment slot. Ten minutes is not enough for a complex history and pretending otherwise wastes both your time.
Ten percent cuts, of the current dose not the original. That is the arithmetic that keeps it survivable. Not on sertraline but the pattern is familiar.
Same here.