I always said that I would never take antidepressants, the last time I went to the doctors and was referred to primary care mental health team I declined the offer of medication, I saw a counsellor and talked with her, I knew all the answers to the questions, I was doing all the things they offered already, I have trained, studied, read, listened to and watched so much over the last seven years regarding mental health, depression, anxiety. I have built an arsenal of tools and techniques and have talked with and helped a lot of people over those years but and it is a big but I had started to not listen to my own advice.
Through a number of things, my mental health plummeted and I found my self in a very dark place, I had never felt so low in all my life, I felt alone, isolated, afraid, I had some very dark thoughts and really did scare myself with those thoughts, I did what 90% of men and definitely ex-servicemen did and self-medicated with drink this blocked things out for that very brief period of time but only made matters worse in reality, I never drank when Ffion was with me and those times I felt better in myself.
I made another appointment with the doctor as I felt i was sinking deeper and deeper into this black hole, over 3 weeks for an appointment. I tried to get an earlier appointment but there were none available. When the appointment came around I was in a slightly better frame of mind, I talked to the doctor and said how low I had been at my worse, he asked me what I had to lose by trying the antidepressants and in reality, I had nothing to lose, if they could stabilise me and help me get back on an even keel then it had to be worth a try.
He prescribed Sertraline (SSRI). Sertraline is a type of antidepressants known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). It’s often used to treat depression, and also sometimes panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The initial dosage was 50mg for 7 days then 100mg after that. The most common side effects are.
Sertraline side effects
- nausea, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, and indigestion.
- change in sleep habits, including increased sleepiness and insomnia.
- increased sweating.
- sexual problems, including decreased sex drive and ejaculation failure.
- tremor or shaking.
- tiredness and fatigue.
- agitation.
One of mine was the opposite in that I was constipated, my sleep pattern is all over the place I am often awake until 4 or 5 then fall asleep for a few hours, I have been totally drained and running on empty which is probably why I have just got over the worst case of the lurgy that I have had in years. My appetite is not what it normally is and I have been generally eating crap, my immune system is very low as I have not been eating my fermented foods so my gut biome is bolloxed, the antidepressant stabilises serotonin uptake it can not make it. Although serotonin is well known as a brain neurotransmitter, it is estimated that 90 per cent of the body’s serotonin is made in the digestive tract. … Peripheral serotonin is produced in the digestive tract by enterochromaffin (EC) cells and also by particular types of immune cells and neurons.
So it’s back to the fermented foods there is a lot of research around the gut-brain axis and as they say a healthy gut healthy mind.
It is early days on the antidepressants so I will persist and see how things go.
