Withdrawal from Antidepressants

 (February 22nd | Antidepressants | Carsten Schertzer | Flickr)

(February 22nd | Antidepressants | Carsten Schertzer | Flickr)

Damien K., Hour 5B

Have you ever taken antidepressants that your doctor has prescribed you and after trying to get off of them you have had strange withdrawal symptoms?

Withdrawal has affected a lot of people after even taking normal everyday medication for a while and then stopping them has caused different withdrawal symptoms. Many people all around the world are taking different antidepressants to help with their depression but when they want to get off of those medications they start to have strange withdrawal effects happening to them. Withdrawal from antidepressants affects those who take it all even though these medications are supposed to help us with our mental health.

Worn off

There are many people in America that do take antidepressants and sometimes their body gets used to the medications that soon they start to feel like they are wearing off.

A quote from the article, How Much Do Antidepressants Help, Really? By Melinda Wenner Moyer says,  “…, It’s unclear how helpful these drugs are when taken for more than a few months- which raises concerns for the many adults who have been taking the drugs for a long time.” It really is not clear if taking these medications after more than a few months is helpful. That raises the question of how many people have been taking these medications for a long time and if they have worn off.

In an interview with Crystal asking if antidepressants actually helped and if they have worn off, she said, “Yes, my meds did actually help me out for a little bit but I did have to change the prescription after a while of being on my medication because I started needing a bigger dose.”

(File:Prozac pills.jpg – Wikimedia Commons)

Effects of withdrawal: Symptoms of antidepressant withdrawal and what could happen.
A quote from How Much Do Antidepressants Help, Really? By Melinda Wenner Moyer says  “…People can also experience withdrawal… known as antidepressant discontinuation syndrome, when they stop taking antidepressants,.., and that the drugs can pose other risks perhaps increasing the likelihood of strokes, heart attacks, falls and even death.” With stopping taking your antidepressant medications there are a lot of different dangerous risks/symptoms that may happen with. When a person stops taking their medications for a few weeks or even months there is a possibility of having strokes, heart attacks, falling, and even death…

Harvard Health said,  “Neurotransmitters act throughout the body, and you may experience physical as well as mental effects when they stop taking antidepressants or lower the dose too fast. Common complaints include… Digestive, blood vessel control, sleep changes the balance, control of movements, unwanted feelings, and strange sensations,” There are many different symptoms that might happen when getting off of your antidepressant medications too fast or just all together, there is actually a whole list of symptoms that would come with going off of your medications. Many doctors do not recommend for people on antidepressant medications get off of them right away they do recommend slowly getting off the medications until they feel like there won’t be any more symptoms that might happen.

Slowly: Effects of what might happen when stopping the intake of your medications right away to slowly trying to get off of them.

Dr. Horowitz said, “The American Psychiatric Association recommends that patients who have experienced just one episode of depression take antidepressants for between four and nine months. … “People should not stop cold turkey. They should do so slowly,” …,” A person that is on antidepressant medications should definitely not just stop taking their medications right out of the blue, this could cause even more problems to happen like more severe symptoms of the antidepressant discontinuation syndrome to happen. They should actually slowly try to ease off of the medications until they feel comfortable with everything and until they feel like there are no more symptoms going to happen to them, lowering the amount of medication they take or when they actually take it.

In an interview with Crystal K, talking about how long it took to start to feel the effects of withdrawal she said, “It took about maybe a week or later for me to start noticing the different feelings/signs of withdrawal I was going through from the medications I was on. It was not that noticeable that I could definitely see what was happening,” The signs of withdrawal from antidepressants could be very different from person to person because of what medications they are on and if they have gone through withdrawal from antidepressants before.