Treatment Experience
As Zoloft is the only medication I've ever taken, I cannot compare its effectiveness with other drugs. However, taking this medication is what turned my life around. Just a few weeks after moving up to the standard dose, 100  mg, I found myself able to think rationally when around other people and to open my mouth. I also felt much better about myself in general. Not content with that, I went on to halve my dose--and 6 months later I am regretting that.

Zoloft may not work for everyone. But I experienced few side effects while taking the drug--just some headaches and insomnia for the first  week or so--and  it gave me the strength to make a life for myself.

Treatment Experience
Zoloft is the only drug I have taken for my social anxiety in conjunction with Valium when required. I have had success with this drug in the form of less general anxiety through day to day living and it has helped me to take steps towards overcoming my anxiety properly by seeking therapy and using the drug in conjunction to help make positive progress.

Side effects are minimal for myself, first few weeks I suffered from mild insomnia and lack of appetite however these effects diminished completely after the first month of use.

Treatment Experience
i started zoloft on 25mg, the half recommend dose, and like instantly i get in a mania the first week. i was able to talk very open and honest right out of my heart and be very loving and giving to others, which they seemed to be enjoying. usually i'm considered cold, shy and not very warm because i'm holding my affect back because im fearing to make myself ridicouls.
as the time goes by, the mania resolve. i remember being very high energy all the time, wanted to do this and that, fear was improved, but socially there was definatly something left. sometimes i did things where fear or the counsiouness of risik would have been not bad, like i was crossing streets as if i am a tank, or just doin other things that could end very badly.
i acutally dared to start talking to others by my very self just for fun, without any need to do that. this was also a nice new experience, i seemed also to worry less.

sometimes i behaved ridicouls in fornt of others like i was drunk or something, at the time it was the most normal thing to do for me. however when i was alone, i felt often really bad and emotionall pain. so if you take it and are still often alone you have to keep this in mind.
i stopped it because i got to unstable and the positive effects wore off, as time went by. but it was a good time that i enjoy remembering.

Treatment Experience

I've been taking Sertraline (generic Zoloft) since August of 2008. It was then that my Psychologist and family doctor explained to me that I had SA. I was definitely very nervous to start taking this medication as I was not educated enough to fully understand that it was okay. I take 25mg once a day, which is half of a normal dose. When I first started taking the medication my stomach was very upset for a few days. I was also a bit sleepy during the day. After about a week those side effects went away and right at a month after taking my first pill I started to notice a difference. I am definitely more relaxed and at ease in situations that would normally cause me great anxiety. Its like before my anxiety was shouting at me, but now its just a whisper.
A few other side effects that I have noticed are a little bit of weight gain and some loss of sex drive. I learned that these were common side effects, neither has effected me enough to make me want to try something else. I still have a sex drive and I have no problems having an orgasm, but I've noticed that my desire for sex is a little less than it was before the medication. Overall, I'm very happy with this medication, I feel it has set me free in being held back by my SA.

Treatment Experience
Even at a very low dose, it made me very apathetic and completely eliminated my libido. I noticed no positive effects on my depression or anxiety. I was only on it for a couple weeks before I stopped taking it.

As with all medications, your experience will be based on your biology. Everyone reacts to medications differently.

Treatment Experience

I had a situation at the start of this year with crises at home and didn't particularly care if I walked in front of a car.  This drug shook me out of this frame of mind and calmed me down - it slowed down my thoughts and made me feel more able to cope with what was going on in my life.

At the beginning I had several side-effects including excessive sweating; insomnia; 4 days straight of a headache as my body was acclimatising to the drug - this was at about week 4-5.

It's was worth the wait to almost totally eradicate the side-effects.  Overall my sleep is a bit better although I still am dependant a few nights a week on sleeping medications.  I feel in a more even mood - and I'm dwelling less on problems. 

 I didn't start zoloft for social anxiety - it was more to try and control generalised anxiety and mood problems.  I forgot to add something about how it affects social anxiety.  From day one I felt less anxious about people in my periphery.  Another thing is I'm a little bit calmer once I get to a gathering.  I'd probably have to add xanax if I had to go somehwere like a function.  I don't think it makes you talk more amongst people but it does relax you a bit.

Treatment Experience
I was prescribed Zoloft after coming down from a whirlwind experience with Paxil. So I was depressed, more anxious than ever and in a new job. So basically the effects Zoloft had on me were that it made me quite apathetic and it had the slightly embarrassing side effect of making me gassy.

So it didn't work for me.

Treatment Experience
Zoloft was a horrible experience for me, it gave me some serious stomach problems and made my panic attacks worse. I wish i could get back the 4 weeks i was on this drug.I switched to prozac and things got much better.

Treatment Experience
I took a really high dose of Zoloft for like... a year? The only thing it did for me was lesson my panic attacks - where my heart would race and I'd feel like throwing up. It never helped with anything else.
When I went off of it, I basically stayed the same. It's like, once I learned what it felt like to -not- have a panic attack, I could just do it on my own, without the medication. Usually.

Treatment Experience
Zoloft was the 4th and last SSRI I ever tried. I started at 100 mg (largest pill they make) and was up to 200 mg (max recommended dose) within a week. I stayed on it for a full 13 weeks. For the final month of this test I went to 300 mg, 50% above max recommended dose, so I really beat this dead horse in terms of both dosage & duration.

I think it's fair to say that if Zoloft doesn't work even at 300 mg and even after 3 whole months it's never going to work.

Zoloft does differ from other SSRIs, like Paxil. With Paxil I couldn't orgasm, but I had a sex drive so I really wanted to. With Zoloft I could still orgasm, but it killed my sex drive so I had no desire to. Now that's a cruel irony, isn't it.

SSRIs royally SUCK!!! Any doctor who dares suggest another SSRI to me will likely end up in the ER to have my size 13 foot removed from his ***.

As for my rating, I had to select 'Poor' as they don't have a rating called 'totally useless garbage'.