It goes without saying that everyone faces ups and downs on and off. It is quite normal as far as human brain resources cannot go together all the time, thus sometimes the whole system needs fixing. If it happens once or twice the brain is supposed to recover fast. But if stress goes after stress brain cannot contain mental overload and goes off. This bad thing got the name of depression.
I suppose that depression isnt that much new in history. It had different names and was cured in various ways, but that was definitely about the same mental state.
All of us have bad days, no? You can hear hundreds of soapy stories about people who got screwed up in their lives and turned to a really bad mental state. In fact, that can happen to everyone. We will not go deeper with the social, psychological and physiological factors that contribute to depression in this article. We will rather look into possible risks of various drugs that are made to relieve depression. These drugs are usually called antidepressants.
Antidepressant medications reached the peak of their popularity all over the world when the pace of life was ever going faster. Then all of a sudden rushed to the lowest point, because were unable to handle various side effects and imposed several risks on people that used to take them.
Different kinds of antidepressant drugs have different effects. The most famous antidepressant group is the Prozac family, or SSRIs (the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). Some other groups contain the monamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and the serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). The most popular is the SSRI group, mainly because they are safer if overdose.
The biggest risks from taking antidepressants are still considered to be suicide risks. The Food and Drug Administration said recently that there was an increasing risk of suicide among people who took antidepressants, especially among the younger age group, moreso with the results of trials that showed that most medications performed no better than sugar pills, but the results were sometimes devastating.
Another thing is that antidepressants have a funny way of being overdosed now and again by people that strive for more happiness and joy in life. Overdose can be avoided successfully when taking the group of more or less safe for overdose antidepressant drugs though.
Antidepressant drugs contain the risks of so called serotonin syndrome. Serotonin syndrome is a drug reaction that comes from over-stimulation of serotonin receptors. The syndrome occurs when you mix the antidepressant with either another antidepressant or with other drugs. The risk group drugs are ecstasy, cocaine, lithium, drugs that treat Parkinson's Disease, anti-epileptics, analgesics, anti-migraine drugs, appetite suppressants etc. If you have symptoms like hyperactivity, mental confusion, agitation, shivering, sweating, fever, lack of coordination, seizure, and diarrhea, it is strongly recommended that you consult a doctor and set at least a fortnight washout period between taking antidepressants and other drugs.
Antidepressants are also known for a bunch of side effects like nausea, agitation, insomnia, drowsiness, tremor, dry mouth, diarrhea, dizziness, headache, anxiety, weight gain or loss, loss of libido, rash etc. The main issue here is that not all the trials show all possible side effect of a drug and individually people can suffer from more and more side effects while taking antidepressant drugs.
What else can make you down about that? Well, studies showed that about 20%-30% of those taking pills do not get relief. But they usually still have side effects and risks. A lot comes from deluding that the drug could be helpful though.
Despite popularity among people all over the world, antidepressants contain certain risks. Be careful, you never know where you stumble.
Rachel
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