Sertraline for anxiety? Can it make you hyper

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My son just started sertraline for anxiety. He has had it two days now. I noticed today that he seems a bit hyper. Anyone know if this is a side effect? If so, does this go away after an adjustment period?

This is from the Wikipedia:

Akathisia—that is, "inner tension, restlessness, and the inability to stay still"—caused by sertraline was observed in 16% of patients in a case series.[118] This and other reports[119][120][121] note that akathisia begins soon after the initiation of treatment or a dose increase; often, several hours after taking the medication. Akathisia usually disappears within several days after sertraline is stopped or its dose is decreased. In some cases, clinicians confused akathisia with anxiety and increased the dose of sertraline, causing further worsening of the patients' symptoms.[121] Experts note that because of the possible link of akathisia with suicide and the distress it causes to the patient, "it is of vital importance to increase awareness amongst staff and patients of the symptoms of this relatively common condition".[122][123]

I have taken this medication and my psychiatrist warned that it could have this effect. I actually found it helped with my sleep. Side effects are supposed to disappear after an adjustment period but in some cases may not. It didn't really have much effect on my anxiety when I took it but it worked well with my depression. If you're worried, you should ring the prescribing doctor or the pharmacy/chemist/drugstore and ask them.

He is on the lowest dose. This does not really seem to state that this is a temporary adjustment side effect that may fade as he gets used to it. Any thing about that?

I was on i and it did the opposite. Although I have had unusual reactions to drugs in genral.

I have been taking setraline for over a year now, and I still feel a little more restless than usual. What I went through during the actual adjustment time was much worse. For a couple days I had what I could only describe as severe nausea, but it was the worst two days of my life. I was shaking, couldn't walk without collasping on my own weight, couldn't eat anything and could barely drink water, and overall felt like some flu from h***. I'd rather go back to the suicidal level of depression I was at before then go through those two days again. I also had a lot of other problems during those couple months, including having pretty much all the characteristics of bipolar disorder the whole time. But I'm glad all that is over, now I just feel a little weirder than usual.

What is the lowest dose?

He is taking 1/2 a tablet. A full being 25 mg.

The prescription is 1/2 for a week, then a full for a week then 1 1/2 for a week to get to 37.5 mg

I did Lexapro back when. I felt horrible the first week then fine after that, but never restless or "hyper", so that is why I am so curious.

Yep.... my doctor lied to me. She told me that 50mg is the lowest dose, and I knew she was wrong, but I didn't know how wrong she was. Thanks for the clarification.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/con ... 58/12/2008

This study has a lot of good information for you.

"Adverse events were assessed with a checklist of items, each of which were rated on a scale from "not present" to "mildly," "moderately," and "markedly present." A symptom was defined as an adverse event either if it was not present at baseline but was reported in the course of the study or if it was present at baseline but its severity was increased by at least 1 point on the scale during the study. Fisher’s exact tests (p<0.05) showed no statistically significant differences in adverse events between the sertraline group and the placebo group. It is interesting to note that patients who received sertraline reported less dizziness (18% versus 64%, p<0.08), nausea (5% versus 55%, p<0.06) and stomach pain (18% versus 64%, p<0.08) (Fisher’s exact tests) than the patients who received placebo. Only for four side effects did the sertraline patients report numerically more adverse events than the placebo patients: dry mouth (55% versus 27%, p=0.39), drowsiness (73% versus 45%, p=0.39), leg spasms (36% versus 9%, p=0.31), and restlessness (55% versus 27%, p=0.39) (Fisher’s exact tests)."

Restlessness is 55% so I think that's a pretty good probability for you.

Of course, this study only used 22 kids, and out of that 3 dropped out, so it's an incredibly small test group. There just hasn't been a lot of studies done yet to see what these drugs do to kids, and I don't think there's been any studies that cover long-term effects in kids.

My son is just 14, maybe they consider a minimum dose of sertraline for kids different from adults. Hwoever, I think when I was on Lexapro, I started like my son, half of 25.

That's interesting that 55 percent have that. That seems high. Oddly enough, my son seems over it for the day. He gets that way anyway now and then, maybe it was his regular stimming type stuff. So I think will keep at it for now and see. I am hoping this will help with social anxiety for him.

Sertralina aka Zoloft has done wonders for my 10 y/o DD. She's been on it for over 6 months now. At first it just caused some sleepiness so she took it at night like I do. Ya, we're both on it and it works well for both of us. It did make us both stim a LOT more in the first few weeks, but I didn't feel hyper or anything and she didn't seem more hyper- just more fidgety.

Her teacher did not know she was on it. At a conference we had with him and school admins a few months later, her teacher reported that she seemed to be doing better with class participation, raised her hand to answer questions more often, and seemed generally less anxious. We asked him when he noticed these changes- it was about a month after she started taking the Zoloft.

Give it some time. If it works, it can be wonderful. I know that for me, it seems to have just taken me down a notch on the anxiety scale- even helping with sensory overload, etc, It's just chilled me out a little- my daughter too.

http://pharma-help.com/sertaline/sertaline-side-effects
http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/fda-a ... aline.html

People are different, my son became very hypomanic on Prozac. A quarter dose of any SSRI will slow my heart too much, a whole tablet would likely kill me.
Akathisia is different to hypomania. Hypomania is more about having an excess of energy,not being able to sleep.
I would be a bit scared of the side effect of being a bit hyper after just a couple of days.
Watch him carefully and don't increase the dose if you feel instinctively that it is the wrong thing to do.