Posted by JohnL on November 30, 2000, at 5:35:06
In reply to help!!!!!!! I need some advice, posted by odells on November 29, 2000, at 20:55:55
Odells,
Yeah, I remember you writing a while back about the Zoloft withdrawals. I'm very sorry you are having these troubles.I think it's natural for all of us to want to be drugfree. I think people with high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, or whatever feel the same way. But at some point we have to make a decision whether the benefits outweigh whatever it is about the drug that we don't like.
I think you would be wise to see your doctor ASAP and restart Zoloft. Who knows, maybe you will have to take it indefinitely. That's OK. You would be among millions of people that have to do the same thing. But you may find you can do alright with a lower dose than previously. And who knows, you may find you can very slowly, in small increments, ween off the drug over a period of 8 to 12 weeks. Very very slowly.
Depression has a way of getting more intense, more bizarre, and more frequent with age. The best insurance at enjoying normal days is continuous prophylactic use of a necessary medicine. I don't want drugs forever. You don't want drugs forever. Who does? Nobody does. But it's a bridge most people have to cross at some point in their lives, for one illness or another. At least yours is treatable, and you don't have to suffer. Our ancestors had no choice. You do.
In a nutshell, what I would do: See the doc, restart Zoloft, stabilize on it for a month, then try weening off it over an 8 to 12 week period. If problems return while weening, then I would have to think about taking it everyday no different than a vitamin. As I recall, a specific traumatic event in your life caused the depression. But one must consider that perhaps the depression was there all along, laying dormant in wait, just needing a spark to set it off. It could look obvious that a divorce or whatever caused it, but it could easily be much more than that.
John
poster:JohnL
thread:49654
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001130/msgs/49679.html