Today I had an appointment with a new psychiatrist to work up a plan for weaning myself off of Zoloft. Last summer I had been planning to go off it entirely before we even started trying for a baby, but after discussing it with my original doctor, I decided to keep taking it through the first two trimesters of any eventual pregnancy and taper off in the last months leading up to delivery.

When I reached the point that I wanted to start cutting back, I found out that the psychiatrist who had initially prescribed Zoloft for me wasn’t currently practicing, so I was left a bit at a loss. Last month I cut back on my own from my usual daily dose of 100mg to 50mg, but I wasn’t comfortable continuing from there without talking to a doctor, so I made an appointment. The doctor I met today was very nice and helpful, and we decided that starting today I’ll go down to 25mg daily, and stop taking the medication entirely after a month.

Zoloft has made such a difference in my life that I’m a bit apprehensive about stopping with it altogether. The doctor did say, though, that if I start feeling noticeably worse on the lowered dose we can re-evaluate the plan, so that’s some reassurance. Also, there’s nothing stopping me from taking it again after the baby is born (the reason for quitting in the last trimester, apparently, is to prevent the risk of the baby going through withdrawal symptoms after it’s born — since only trace amounts of the drug pass into breastmilk, it’s not considered a problem to take it while nursing), so if it turns out later that I really do need to be on something I won’t be left high and dry.

So, I guess we’ll see how this goes.