My mom called me today, worried about my stepfather. For three nights in a row, he’s woken screaming from horrible nightmares. Now, he’s had night terrors every once in a while in the past, but never consecutively.
He’s been taking Zoloft for stress and anxiety for a couple of months now, but he admits that he frequently forgets to take it. He also takes Zanaflex at night because of back pain. (I don’t know if the two could somehow interact, but the same doctor prescribed both and didn’t seem to think there’d be a problem.)
IANAD, but I told her my theory: that the Zoloft may be contributing to it because he’s messing with the chemicals in his brain when he forgets a pill, and that all day long, he’s worried about having another night terror, and he’s almost causing them by his anxiety.
I searched the internet, but most of the info on night terrors concerns children. I did see a couple of references on Q & A boards linking Zoloft and night terrors, but nothing on the actual medical sites.
Anyone had experience with this? Should he call his doctor and report the symptoms?
Absolutely call the doctor, he/she may put him on a different dose. My experience with Zoloft is that is is an excellent SSRI for anxiety and stress/depression, however, the initial side effects can be very serious. Tremors, difficulty concentrating, general feeling of numbness, and fleeting thoughts. But you must, must, must take it everyday as prescribed. Skipping doses can certainly mess with your rhythme. Definitely call the doctor, and possibly accompany the zoloft with some sort of therapy.
Frequently forgetting to take an SSRI is a bad idea, missing a single dose usually has no effect but missing two in a row can set off side effects. So get him to his doctor, and get him to take the dose prescribed regularly. These are drugs which build up effect and reduce side effects over time, a fluctuating dose is a bad idea. They are not like asprin where a single dose can effect a single headache, they are only effective through several months of use.
The warnings for Zoloft don’t specifically include night terrors, but they do include:
anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility (aggressiveness), impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, mania, worsening of depression, and suicidal ideation, especially early during antidepressant treatment.
It’s possible some of that could manifest itself as night terrors.
Call the doctor. And for heaven’s sake, get him to take his prescriptions on schedule.
Well I’ve been on Zoloft since about 1992 (just about when it was introduced).
Yes, the initial side effects were pretty pronounced. For me, the 2 worst were fatigue and muscle tension. The latter effect was really weird. For no reason I’d gradually and unconciously start clenching my teeth, making fists, that sort of thing. The fatigue was easier to solve. I think I took it once BEFORE I went to work - bad idea. I’m amazed I stayed awake the whole day. It was logical to take it at bedtime which really helped me sleep (not that I’ve ever had a problem with that).
One side effect which is still with me 13 years later is that of vivid dreaming. I can see where this would be very disturbing if somebody were prone to having nightmares. Luckily, I’ve never had nightmares that bad but I could see how disturbing this would be if a nightmare occurred with the vivid imagery induced by Zoloft. I just thought this was worth mentioning.
When I was on Zoloft, it definitely had a powerful effect on my dreams, and I’ve always been a pretty vivid dreamer to being with.
I won’t say they were more intense, but they were just, more. Can you wake up exhausted from dreaming too much? I did.
A lot of my dreams were actually pretty mundane, and I had to spend 5 or 10 minutes after waking up, thinking through the dreams and sorting out which ones were actual memories from the day before, and which ones were dreams from the last night.
levdrakon
Nice to see I wasn’t the only one with the vivid dream side effects. Also, though the dreams are vivid, as you pointed out, they are also mundane.
Oh, it would be a LOT of fun to have one of those dreams with Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman or Kate Hudson. Well, at least I don’t get the night terrors either so the tradeoff is worth it. Then again hmmmmmmmmmm …
I also get vivid dreams on SSRIs, I think that alcohol makes the dreams more vivid though I haven’t enough experiences to be sure there is a correlation.
I’m also a long time Zoloft user and I had the vivid bizarre dreams when I first started out, but I don’t recall having nightmares on them. (I did on nicotine patches, though the theory is it doesn’t affect your dreaming so much as it makes you remember more of it when you wake up.)
I have forgotten or otherwise not taken my Zoloft for several day stretches a couple of times. The side effects for me were grogginess, irritability, headaches and, of course, depression.
Does your stepfather have anything in his past to your knowledge that could cause post-traumatic stress? I’ve worked with Vietnam vets who for no apparent stimuli suddenly started having terrible nightmares about their time in country 25-30 years later, and I know an incest survivor who for no apparent reason began having horrible flashbacks in her forties to events from her teens. I don’t think any of these were medication related, though they did take medication to deal with them.
I’ve been on Zoloft since early March and I have had the same side effects, plus random tremors in my hands and feet. The jaw thing is especially annoying because it makes my mild TMJ worse. My massage therapist is helping with that with deep (and fairly uncomfortable) deep tissue massage of my jaw muscles. It hurts at the time, but the massages really helped. I enjoy the vivid dreaming part, but sometimes I wake up disoriented and plain worn out from all the dream activity. I also get pretty tired during the day, but it doesn’t really affect my day-to-day existence and I rarely have insommina.
I am reading with interest the effects of coming off of it, though because I don’t want to take it all of my life if I don’t have to. It has really helped my anxiety, though. Emotionally I feel better than I have in my whole life, practically.
No, nothing like that. he just has a very high-stress job and is a very anxious person to begin with. He’s had infrequent night terrors since he was a child, but this concerned him because he’d never had them three nights in a row. (More like once or twice a year.)
