If so, what was your experience? How did you know you were on too high a dose?
Welcome to the Anxiety Forum - A Home for Those with Anxiety, Fear, or Panic Attacks.
If so, what was your experience? How did you know you were on too high a dose?
Yes. I went wild. I had no feelings at all & cared about nothing. It was bad. I felt great but I had no fear. No fear is a problem.
Yes! It was absolutely terrible. Kind of a long story, but I think it's worth sharing.
I recently moved to a new town and am still on waiting lists to get in with my new doctors, so when my anxiety and panic attacks got super intense a few weeks ago, I had no choice but to turn to a walk-in clinic. (Note: I took 10mg/day of Lexapro for about 3 years and got little, if any, relief from it, gained a ton of weight, and decided to ween myself off of it in January of this year. I didn't feel any different when I wasn't taking it.)
When I got back to the exam room at the clinic, it was a CRNP, not an MD, that I had to discuss my issues with. I have nothing against seeing a CRNP at a walk-in clinic, don't get me wrong, but I think maybe her lack of expertise in the matter is why I was put on too high a dose of an SSRI. Anyway, I explained to her that I've always been a pretty anxious person, a worry-wart, but am decent at keeping it under control by myself. Lately, however, I was waking up and going to sleep with extreme anxiety and was actually having 2-4 absolutely terrible, long-lasting panic attacks a day. She sort of rambled on about the sorry state of mental health care in the region we live in, and I agreed of course. She finally got around to it and suggested that I try Zoloft for my anxiety and panic, which I was completely open to. I have a couple of relatives who have been on Zoloft for years and they've had no issues at all with it, so I felt comfortable with the idea.
The CRNP proceeded to explain that most of the people who are prescribed Zoloft for panic start on 50mg/day, but in her experience, they all inevitably come back asking to be put on a higher dose because they never feel as though 50mg gets the job done for them. She deduced, then, that I should just start on a 100mg/day dose. This seemed reasonable to me and I was kind of excited to try it and hopefully get some relief.
After I had my prescription filled that day, I took my first dose. I'd been warned that I may feel the effects the first day that I took it, or that it may be two weeks before I noticed any difference. My experience was the former. I experienced an intense hot flash, but a definite wave of relaxation as well. I was so pleased that it worked so quickly, and with only one weird side effect.
I took my 100mg dose again the next day, feeling a little more fatigued and hot, but still less anxious so I was cool with it. But on the third day on Zoloft, after I took my pill in the morning I had another crazy hot flash, so unbearable that I was sure that I had a fever. I took my temperature, but it was 96.8F. I was so confused. And sweaty. Not long after, still pouring sweat, I started vomiting and having absolutely uncontrollable diarrhea. I felt incredibly weak, as I'd had no appetite in days and couldn't keep anything in my body. I was having more panic attacks because of all of these awful physical symptoms and I became so sure that I was going to die.
Worst of all, my husband was out of town on business while all of this happened, so I was all by myself! I mustered up enough strength (and clean panties) to drive myself back to the walk-in clinic that I was at a couple days earlier. This time I saw a different CRNP who, after hearing my story, was enraged at the actions of the lady I saw earlier in the week. She said something to the effect of, "Each nurse and doctor has their own experiences with and opinions on medication doses, and that may be true for who you saw on Monday, but I think it's always best to start a patient on a low dose and then let them increase if they feel its necessary. In fact, I usually prescribe 12.5mg/day of Zoloft to start. All of your symptoms are a direct result of you taking too high a dose, too quickly. You didn't get the care you needed when you were here on Monday, and we are so sorry. It's a good thing you paid close attention to your symptoms and came back to the clinic, because you could have passed out from dehydration or becoming too overheated." Needless to say, I was relieved that they could make my symptoms go away, but completely PISSED that I had been so misguided.
She went ahead and wrote me a new prescription for a lower dose of Zoloft so that I don't have to try to quarter my 100mg pills. The following day, all of my crazy symptoms had gone away (other than being super dehydrated from expelling all of my fluids), but I decided pretty quickly that I was too scarred from this Zoloft experience to ever take it again, even in a smaller dose.
I realize that this entire experience is shrouded in ignorance, on my part for not researching Zoloft dosage better before I started taking it, but also probably on the behalf of the first CRNP I saw at that clinic. Now I'm making do with my anxiety (free of meds) by staying busy in my craft room, reading the Tao Te Ching daily, and thanking the universe that I'm still alive.
Last edited by lillianpottinger; 07-26-2015 at 12:47 AM.
I was on a whopping 40mg of Lexapro, whenever I'd tell a doctor the dosage they'd be like "What the hell?"
I felt pretty emotionally numbed. But other than that the worst side effect was complete loss of sex drive. I'm a 21 year old dude who usually would want to screw anything that moves, but on that big of a dosage I didn't think about sex, girls, or even mastrubate for over 5 weeks. Pretty much made me asexual. I'm on 20mg now and it's still pretty bad.
well once my psych didnt have the usual dose of geodon he gave me samples of so he gave me a higher dose and he gave me too much and i got temp tardive dysconesthia and had to go to the ER. is that an ssri? i have a long list of bad experiences with meds. also, after i told him what happened he said i must have taken two by accident. i did not. it was him changing the dose. it was too high a dose. its an effect of the med. a lot of people on haldol go to the ER a lot with temp tardive dysconesthia and we cant walk or talk anymore when we get that temp. and we have to get an IV of cogentin. etc. its fun.
wow i just looked up geodon to see if its an ssri and it says its for bipolar and schizophrenia. i dont see it saying they even give it to people ever for anxiety. so im wondering why i was put on that for anxiety. and all the other tons of meds that only a quack would put me on for anxiety. when he had diagnosed me with anxiety axis one.
"There also is the risk of developing tardive dyskinesia, a condition marked by slow, rhythmical, involuntary movements. This problem is more likely to occur in mature adults, especially older women. When it does, use of Geodon is usually stopped." oh FK no.
eh okay wait it may not be TD it may be the other one. i got the one where you cant walk and your jaw locks but the ER said it was tardive dysconesthia.
Sometimes Geodon is used off label for certain conditions like unipolar depression. I used to know someone that took it for tics in addition to an SSRI for his OCD. I'm not familiar with your diagnosis so I'm not sure why it would be used for anxiety.
Your day will go the way the corners of your mouth turn-Unknown
yeah because it shouldn't be used for anxiety. i think i should be able to sue that psychiatrist. he put me on whatever he felt like putting me on. with no basis. he kept me on risperdal once when i was gaining excessive weight for no reason for months and the med wasn't helping me in any way and he kept telling me to stay on it and stay on it. and eventually i stopped listening to him but not before the damage was done.
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