I developed insomnia and nightmares. When I would drift to sleep, I’d awaken to terrifying nightmares, that would leave me weak and shaking.
I was having bouts of depression from work stresses and general work unhappiness, so my doctor put me on Zoloft. At first, I felt no immediate changes, but about 1 month into treatment, I began wanting to sleep all day. On my days off, I would wake up at 2pm, flop in the couch and nap the rest of the daylight hours away, wake up for an hour or so and back to bed. I would not leave my house, refused to see friends, refused to answer the phone, even quit going to the gym. My doctor decided the med was not working so he upped my dose to 100mg.
Wow!! That really messed me up. I then began suffering gaps in my memory, that started out tiny and insignificant, and grew to be huge and troublesome problems. At the height of this forgetfulness, I missed 3 house payments and 3 car payments!!!! I had never missed a payment in my life….I may have been a couple of days late on a couple of occasions, but never blatantly just missed!! I looked at my check book and could not tell that I had not made the payments. I was so confused and could not focus on anything for very long.
I also began having panic attacks and horrible sweating attacks. I would panic and break out in a horrible sweat….to the point that my hair and clothes would be soaked in a matter of a few minutes. I was especially intolerant of heat of any sort. I took a trip to the Caribbean and felt like clawing my skin off the entire trip, just to escape the heat. But people around me were wearing light sweaters!!! It was horrible.
Then I developed insomnia and nightmares. When I would drift to sleep, I’d awaken to terrifying nightmares, that would leave me weak and shaking.
I also started having strange heart palpitations and twinges of chest pain. Oh! and headaches that were unbearable.
I tapered myself off and immediately began having the most horrific dizzy spells that you can imagine. As long as I didn’t move my head, I was okay, but if I just slightly moved, the room would spin uncontrollably. So much so, that I found myself gripping the walls to stay upright. Then massive, deep sorrowful depression set in. I think I slept for the next 6 months, except when I was at work. I don’t know how I functioned at work, but I managed. During this Zoloft fiasco that lasted over 1 yr, I gained 10 lbs, developed that “fat neck syndrome” and managed to run off my boyfriend.
The sad part of all this is that I am a pharmacist!!!!
Not Lost Anymore
12/10/2002
This is Survivor Story number 6.
Total number of stories in current database is 48
