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Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

newscientist.com

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Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#221

Post by Mezzie »

tsoukase wrote: post #177

All cases are possible with S{S|N}RIs (I am a doctor but I know a little regexp). Patients that took them for two months and never needed again and others that cannot stop them after 20y. The start, the stop and every restart of the drug needs an indication so it should be approached with the same care as any medical decision. It's not right to call it withdrawal. These drugs are not addictive like benzos or alcohol…

I was on Cymbalta for a while for non mental health related issues (nerve pain caused by MS).

I absolutely had withdrawal when I needed to go off of it, and I can say with certainty that the mental effects of going off of it were not just the reappearance of the underlying mental health issues since there weren't any. My emotional regulation was in the toilet, I was extremely irritated, I'd cry constantly, I was horny as hell, etc.

Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#224

Post by krupan »

SSRI's saved my life with no side effects that I can discern, yet I still have the urge to try and get off of them from time and so do friends and family of mine that also benefit from them. Maybe that urge needs more study because it is not taking us in a good direction. I'm not saying that because of the difficulty of weaning off, but because of the benefits of staying on. For those of us that need them, trying to wean off of them is like trying to wean off of I don't know, vitamin C or something else essential. Don't do it! Be glad you found something that helps! Keep taking it!

Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#225

Post by krupan »

fny wrote: post #193
bb123 wrote: post #126

There is a real lack of transparency in communicating some of the long term impacts of SSRIs to new patients. When I was prescribed sertraline not one doctor mentioned the massive (and sometimes permanent!!) sexual side effects, the likelihood of weight gain or how brutal it would be to taper off. Also, I ended up ignoring my doctor's (way too aggressive) tapering schedule and managing my own down-dosing with a pill…

The problem is that psychiatry is an absolute zoo. Ive heard that if you go to 10 doctors you'll get 10 different opinions based on the docs personal experience. Even if there are trials for these medications, the field is not quantitative in practice. "Standard of care" is a myth.

Definitely prefer psychologists and therapists over psychiatrists, but don't discount how much something like an SSRI can help

Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#226

Post by krupan »

jkxyz wrote: post #175

I went cold turkey off of citalopram when I was a teenager and it was a pretty unpleasant two weeks of heart palpitations, but the immediate benefit of no longer experiencing emotional blunting made me avoid taking any more antidepressants for 10 years. I was prescribed it by a GP and never given any real support in my mental health or in coming off of it. It was a real black pill for me on the UK's treatment of ment…

I've heard similar stories. Different people react to the same med differently

Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#227

Post by gwbas1c »

> Likewise, a 2025 study found that people with dementia who were taking antidepressants experienced more rapid cognitive decline. “Sometimes we think a lot about medications when we start them, but we don’t think enough about stopping them at some point,” says Sara Garcia Ptacek, a neurologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who worked on the study.

My aunt had Alzheimer's and had to be put on anti-anxiety medication just so that her caretaker could manage her. (This was at the point where she no longer recognized her children, but recognized her siblings.)

Even if it accelerated her eventual end, it certainly improved the situation. She would have been impossible to take care of otherwise.

That being said, before Alzheimer's, she was a very anxious person and often difficult. If she was medicated earlier in life, would it have accelerated the onset of Alzheimer's?

Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#228

Post by Mezzie »

clsec wrote: post #192
throwaway250501 wrote: post #56

When I was diagnosed with depression - amongst other things - my doctor prescribed SSRIs with a caveat that they might or might not work. After a few weeks I was tapered off them. I felt no different before, during or after them. What helped was 3 daily walks around the park, around 9km per day after each meal. Anecdotal but it is what it is. Right now I have bigger problems than just depression.

>>Right now I have bigger problems than just depression. Just depression?! You might want to grab a little empathy before writing off something that has been a major problem in a large chunk of the populations lives. In fact, "just depression" has caused me to try to take my life multiple times. I can hardly see a "bigger problem" out there..

There are absolutely people with bigger problems than depression. For example, I have MS, and my mental health is absolutely one of my less concerning problems. There are so many options for mental health + the treatments are much easier to access than a lot of my symptom management meds + DMT. People undergoing chemo. People with ALS. People with bipolar (who can't take a lot of first line depression treatments) or other more complex mental health issues like schizophrenia.

None of this is to downplay depression, but there are absolutely people for whom 'just depression' would be accurate. Migraines suck, but someone with cluster headaches might call them 'just migraines' and they wouldn't be wrong.

Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#229

Post by krupan »

bb123 wrote: post #126

There is a real lack of transparency in communicating some of the long term impacts of SSRIs to new patients. When I was prescribed sertraline not one doctor mentioned the massive (and sometimes permanent!!) sexual side effects, the likelihood of weight gain or how brutal it would be to taper off. Also, I ended up ignoring my doctor's (way too aggressive) tapering schedule and managing my own down-dosing with a pill…

Were you experiencing side effects that made you want to get off? For the vast majority of people there really are none.

Re: Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal

#230

Post by gwbas1c »

asa123 wrote: post #130
bb123 wrote: post #126

There is a real lack of transparency in communicating some of the long term impacts of SSRIs to new patients. When I was prescribed sertraline not one doctor mentioned the massive (and sometimes permanent!!) sexual side effects, the likelihood of weight gain or how brutal it would be to taper off. Also, I ended up ignoring my doctor's (way too aggressive) tapering schedule and managing my own down-dosing with a pill…

somewhat off topic but i’ve thought about tapering like this, but i’ve got wondered where can one get a calibrated milligram scale? or perhaps it doesn’t matter too much.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=calibrated+milligram+scale

---

They're common, cheap, and plenty of (recreational) drug dealers use them.

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