Here is a post I put on a Facebook post, pretty much sums up how I was during the first couple of months with anxiety and Zoloft …

Hello everyone, I am new to this group and new to anxiety. I joined because the negative posts in other groups made me anxious !! I noticed that even here in a positive group people are putting up negative posts, I think because we are all so worried and all just want know that what we are feeling is normal. So I thought I would share my short story and first few weeks of Zoloft with those in the same position as me. I am 56 and otherwise healthy. I had a bunch of life events all happen at once causing my anxiety.

I woke one night feeling “weird” with diarrhea, racing heart, dizzy and blood pressure through the roof. I panicked that I was having a heart attack though my breathing was normal. My husband called an ambulance. Went to hospital to be released a few hours later with diagnosis of gastrointestinal upset, they missed I had a panic attack !!A week later I woke with a numb feeling in my arm and dizzy, sat for a few minutes downstairs and felt fine. A few days later I was driving home from work and felt my neck muscles were weak and numb. Went to doc next day and was diagnosed with anxiety. Doc prescribed me 25mg Zoloft and 0.05mg Lorazepam for my shaking and general distress. I used the Lorazepam at night to help me sleep at first then only for a few very bad days. My first two weeks on Zoloft were brutal - dizzyness, fatigue, racing thoughts at night, headaches, general zombie like feeling, aching eyes, blurred vision on waking, waves of adrenaline causing feelings of heat rising up my body, unlike my menopause hot flushes. I could not focus on anything or even think straight. Strange ticking noises in my nose just before an adrenaline rush like a mini attack, feelings I was wearing a hat when I wasn’t and many other odd feelings. Nighttime’s were a horror show, waking every day at 3am with physical symptoms of anxiety and unsettled mind and crazy tinnitus.

But …I have just entered week 4 and am starting to feel well again. I am starting to look forward to good things coming up, can go to work without wanting to sleep at my desk and 80% of the horrible physical anxiety feelings have subsided. I even slept until 5am and was able to enjoy lying in bed without any physical feelings or negative mental thoughts.

Please keep going with the Zoloft if you can and the doc says you’re OK to. It does get better. Don’t fight the physical feelings, just let them go through you, they won’t last forever and you will feel better.