I’ve been gradually decreasing my sertraline dose over the last 2 weeks and have now stopped it altogether 3 days ago. I was only on 50mg (this is with the agreement of my psychiatrist as we both think the lithium will be enough to control my mood) I’m getting weird ‘brain shifts’ and ‘brain zaps’, no other symptoms but although I can deal with this it’s a bit disorientating and rather irritating. Just wondered if anyone else has had this symptom withdrawing from sertraline and how long it lasts? It’s a really weird feeling, when I move my head I get a sudden shift in my head and little electric zaps through my brain. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
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I’ve heard plenty of people say they got the same effect. Thankfully I never got it despite dropping Zoloft cold turkey twice. I got severe insomnia for like 2 weeks instead, and any time I did manage to sleep and for a while after I got intense and awful nightmares. Happened both times.
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I had the same thing. It lasted for about 3 weeks.
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I’m glad it’s not just me then, it’s really bizarre. I hope it doesn’t last that long, it’s disorientating. Sorry to hear you had such a rough time with insomnia @Anna.
I had the brain zaps, and extreme crying spells where almost any little thing would cause me to burst into tears, and I could not voluntarily stop crying. Sometimes I would have to cry myself to sleep. Other times I would snap and get angry, full of rage, and verbally abusive over the slightest things. Withdrawals from Zoloft lasted a little more than two months after I had completely tapered off of it.
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Thank goodness the brain zaps is my only side effect, sounds like you had it pretty rough too… Luckily I feel ok apart from that one thing, though it’s really annoying me. I’ll just have to be patient and hope it eases off over the next few weeks.
I had nasty brain zaps. Staying properly hydrated helped me a lot, and so did magnesium. Stock up on gatorade, because that has magnesium and other electrolytes and such.
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Side note: With magnesium, be careful when it comes to supplements. Magnesium is a metal, and if you get too much of it, it will make you sick. Diarrhea is the most obvious sign of too much magnesium.
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It’s horrible isn’t it? Thanks for the advice Ninjastar, I didn’t know magnesium could help, I’ll definitely try that.
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i recently went from 100mg of zoloft down to 50mg about 3 weeks and i havent noticed anything yet. I am eventually going to come off it totally as it is causing sexual side effects and i my wife and i have decided to try to have another kid so this is unaccetpable. Hopefully when i come off it totally the withdrawal wont last too long.
Good luck with that, I’d advise tapering very slowly as the withdrawal is nasty, I’ve been doing some reading and apparently these withdrawal symptoms are pretty common coming off ADs.
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