# Zoloft hallucinations



## swannin (Dec 12, 2012)

My 14 year old daughter took zoloft for 10 days and ended up with extreme hallucinations that put her in the mental ward for 3 days. She started on 25 mg for the first 7 days which made her extremely happy. It was then bumped up to 50 mg a day. She started hearing voices and then saw a daemon looking person named Mr. S. that was telling her to kill herself and a lot of other people. Our general practitioner prescribed this for her. It took 3 or 4 days of being off of zoloft for the hallucinations to go away. 

She has since tried wellbutrin - didn't do anything but give her a bad stomach ache.

She tried prozac which worked for a short spell (a month) but not really.

Now she is on lexapro which over the past 2 weeks appears to make her very angry. She is not normally an angry child. The Nurse Practitioner in psychiatry who has been prescribing for her since the zoloft incident wants her to stay on it. 

My daughter is begging me to go back on zoloft because she is so depressed. I suggested a lower dose of zoloft to the Nurse Practitioner and she said that she would not prescribe it for her. My husband had asked our general practitioner at the same time and he said that he would prescribe it in a lower dose. My question is should I even consider letting her go back on zoloft? It is really hard seeing her be so depressed. Any thoughts?

She is seeing a psychologist at least weekly too.


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## Mea (Nov 11, 2012)

I was on Zoloft for a month when I was 16. It made me extremely paranoid and I got to the point where I was 100% sure someone was in my house, when no one actually was. I started hearing whispering voices and I also started scratching myself in my sleep until I bled. It made me feel less depressed for the first couple of days, but I'd rather be depressed than feel how I felt on Zoloft. I have taken every SSRI known to man. NONE have helped. They either don't work, make me paranoid, or make me extremely irritable. The only thing that helped me longer than a few months was Effexor. The only problem with Effexor is that it made my Trichotillomania worse.


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## bazinga (Jun 9, 2010)

Since some meds seem to cause a form of psychosis or agitation and the fact that some antidepressants only help for a short while, is it possible that she might be bipolar?

Some bipolar folks do not respond well to some antidepressants. I tried Lexapro back in 2004 and it gave me mania for 3 weeks straight. Pretty much every antidepressant I have tried doesn't do anything for me. Lamotrigine the mood stabilizer stopped my mood swings and depressive cycles, and Saphris the antipsychotic stops the racing thoughts and paranoia.


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## Ben12 (Jul 8, 2009)

I'd be a bit worried to let her go back on Zoloft if it caused her some psychosis. It might be better to avoid the SSRIs entirely. By the sounds of things the effects don't seem to be all that positive.


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## RelinquishedHell (Apr 10, 2012)

I'm not sure how an SSRI can cause hallucinations?
I was on Zoloft too and I experienced extreme anxiety and hypomania from it.
It made me extremely talkative and quick witted, but it wasn't worth the side effects.


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## cloud90 (Oct 23, 2012)

Note: Don't take anti depressents they make you crazy & **** with your mind.
Take benzos.

Addiction is better then loseing your mind. Seriously. I wouldn't touch anti depressents for nothing in the world after i tripped out on them.


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## riptide991 (Feb 1, 2012)

ThatOneQuietGuy said:


> I'm not sure how an SSRI can cause hallucinations?
> I was on Zoloft too and I experienced extreme anxiety and hypomania from it.
> It made me extremely talkative and quick witted, but it wasn't worth the side effects.


For this exact reason. It raises dopamine. The only SSRI that has a profound impact on dopamine and in very specific regions that can be associated with schizophrenia.

I wouldn't have her touch Zoloft again, it could be a sign of schizophrenic genes for all we know.


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## ericj (Jun 20, 2007)

Personally, I wouldn't touch Zoloft again after the hallucinations, whispering voices, and dulled senses I experienced on it (the effects lingered for quite some time, too). I'm surprised anyone that has experienced the effects would ever want to risk experiencing them again. It was definitely a mind-altering experience, but not in a good way.

Couldn't say what else to try, though. After that experience I refused to take antidepressants to cope. I'd rather be melancholy and change my environment than take drugs for it.


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## swannin (Dec 12, 2012)

*zoloft hallucinations*

Thank you so much for all of your replies. They are very helpful. She had a full psych evaluation yesterday. I won't know the results until the end of the year. I'm hoping it can give us more information.

She wants to go back on zoloft because before she started hallucinating she had the best weekend of her life - had a few girls over for a sleepover, went to the movies, went to the mall, went out rollerskating, and did some other things - more than she has done in months. It truly made her feel happy and excited about life. I get it though the resounding answer is don't let her go back on it.

Has anyone had the genetic test to see what antidepressant might work better and has that been helpful? I was debating if I should push her Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner in that direction?


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## RelinquishedHell (Apr 10, 2012)

kehcorpz said:


> For this exact reason. It raises dopamine. The only SSRI that has a profound impact on dopamine and in very specific regions that can be associated with schizophrenia.
> 
> I wouldn't have her touch Zoloft again, it could be a sign of schizophrenic genes for all we know.


Zoloft raises dopamine?

I guess that would explain why my anxiety got worse while I was on it.


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## Ben12 (Jul 8, 2009)

The thing is that even 50 mg is such a low dose. It probably barely even plays much of a role on dopamine. However correct me if I'm wrong though.


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## whattothink (Jun 2, 2005)

cloud90 said:


> Note: Don't take anti depressents they make you crazy & **** with your mind.
> Take benzos.
> 
> Addiction is better then loseing your mind. Seriously. I wouldn't touch anti depressents for nothing in the world after i tripped out on them.


I've been on Zoloft for 3 years in the past. I've now been on it for 9 months again. It's helped tremendously with my anxiety and depression. I've also used benzo's in the past, maybe more than I should have because they caused some minor paranoia. It's reassuring to me that Zoloft is known to trigger paranoia in susceptible cases because I've never experienced it.


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## thundercats (Mar 12, 2012)

Woah! Really scary testimonies here. Now zoloft's also off my list.
Thanks for the head's up!

Going by those stories you can as well directly snort some dirty street meth.


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## thundercats (Mar 12, 2012)

swannin said:


> She wants to go back on zoloft because before she started hallucinating she had the best weekend of her life - had a few girls over for a sleepover, went to the movies, went to the mall, went out rollerskating, and did some other things - more than she has done in months. It truly made her feel happy and excited about life.


Yeaah that sounds reasonable. I only hope that Mr.S won't show up again.

Or maybe she could cycle it. Like taking it over the weekend, having lots and lots of fun with her friends at the mall, going to the cinema, making popcorn at home, and then during the week she check herself into a hospital for supervision to keep Mr. S. at bay, always looking forward to the next weekend.


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## Ben12 (Jul 8, 2009)

So.... What isn't on your list of medications that you would have to avoid because of your fear?

Edit: directed to Thundercats.


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## ericj (Jun 20, 2007)

thundercats said:


> Woah! Really scary testimonies here. Now zoloft's also off my list.
> Thanks for the head's up!
> 
> Going by those stories you can as well directly snort some dirty street meth.


Based on the doctor's surprise and incredulous reaction, I was the first person he'd ever encountered that claimed this side effect. I'm fairly certain that only a very tiny fraction of the population experiences it, so you're seeing a self-selection bias in these responses. The probability that you would experience the same side effects is extremely low.


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## GotAnxiety (Oct 14, 2011)

Just keep her on a low dose. Im looking into taking weekends or 3 day's off a week to increase sentitivey so there wouldnt need to be a dose increase. But i havn't done a trial or research on my self so i can't really recommend that. But initially starting these ssri can cause hypomania when beginning. But what is true happiness define by anyways.


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