I know it's an anti-depressant but this drugs claims it's to also help anxiety/Panic.

How does it?

Most of the antidepressant drugs work for both anxiety and depression, and even some other related mental health issues. They work for both because the current theories are that increasing the available serotonin or tweaking certain chemicals and/or chemical receptors, will improve mood, no matter what the problem is, and the problems are related, in fact anxiety and depression are very commonly comorbid conditions. Many anxious people will develop depression and many depressed people will experience anxiety. I've taken lots of meds for anxiety, and as far as the antidepressants go, I stayed on Zoloft the longest (until I had a year plus "remission" from anxiety). Different drugs work better for different people, though. Some people experience side effects that others won't. It's a matter of finding the right drug that is going to hit that chemical sweet spot in YOU and balancing it out with the negatives of side effects (and there are almost always some side effects, though they do tend to diminish over time).

Since CircusSquirrel took care of the neurobiology of Zoloft helping with anxiety/panic, I'll just tell you my experience with it helping me. I took it for two years, and it helped my OCD slightly. However, it did absolutely nothing for my panic attacks; only Klonopin helps my panic attacks. Everyone's different, and some people have marvelous success stories eliminating anxiety/panic with SSRI's, but I was not one of them...
-GatsbyLuvr1920-

I was on Zoloft and I requested that I get off of it along with Niravam since I felt I could deal with this on my own.

As far as side effects mine was the sexual ones which oddly isn't an issue getting an erection but achieving orgasm was sometimes a lengthy ordeal.

I'm a virgin, so I have no idea whether or not I had sexual side effects while on the Zoloft, but my main problem was horrible fatigue. I'd be asleep more often than not. I'm really surprised that I was able to get all of my schoolwork done... :angel:
-GatsbyLuvr1920-