Are Antidepressant Safe, Bad for You: When to Change Antidepressants

Question: Is it advisable to take more than one type of antidepressant simultaneously? Is it safe? What should a person do when he wants to change his antidepressants?

Are Antidepressants Bad or Safe

Yes more than one anti-depressant can be recommended and taken at a time. In cases where patient’s depression does not respond particularly to treatment, combination therapy may be beneficial. But it should be recommended with great care and expertise. However, it is not always safe to combine antidepressants. Some of them produce dangerous results when taken together. Tricyclics for example can interact with MAOI’s (Monoamine oxidase inhibitors) to produce agitation, fever, convulsions and even death.

If they are to be used together then the MAOI should be added to the tricyclic and low doses of both drugs should be used in the beginning.

When to Change Antidepressants

When an MAOI is taken along with SSRI (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) it produces a number of symptoms like tiredness, chills, fever, lymph node enlargement and skin rash. And in worst cases the fever is as high as A hundred and four degree Fahrenheit, falling Blood Pressure, rapid heartbeat and coma. In some cases it has even led to death.

When a person is changing from one anti-depressant to another, he should always take the advice of a doctor in the first place.

In some cases switching from a tricyclic to Prozac like drug paroxetine the change can be made immediately. In other cases some time gap is required to get one drug off the system before starting another one. Usually a two week wait is sufficient when switching from an MAOI to a tricyclic or SSRI, or vice versa or from one MAOI to another, or from one SSRI to another. In other situations like changing from Prozac to an MAOI or from MAOI to the tricyclic Anafranil a wash out of five to six weeks is recommended.

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