Your doctor chooses which antidepressant medicine to recommend based on your symptoms, the presence of other medical conditions, what other medicines you are taking, cost of the prescribed treatments, and potential side effects.
Your particular symptoms.
Symptoms of depression can vary, and one antidepressant may relieve certain symptoms better than another. For example, if you have trouble sleeping, an antidepressant that causes some people to be calm or somewhat sleepy may be a good option.
What are the most common antidepressant medications? Sertraline, also known by the brand name Zoloft, used for multiple mental health and mood disorders, is the most prescribed antidepressant dispensed to U.S.
SSRIs are: the most commonly prescribed antidepressants in Australia. often a doctor's first choice for most types of depression. often used for obsessive compulsive disorder.
If a person does not respond well or cannot tolerate an SSRI, then an SNRI or another type of antidepressant may be prescribed. Conditions that SSRIs generally treat include: Mood disorders, such as major depression, bipolar disorder, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD)
While SSRIs are more commonly prescribed because they can be more effective at mood regulation, sometimes with fewer side effects, SNRIs have the ability to improve energy levels, so they each have their own benefits.
Whereas SSRIs impact your levels of serotonin, SNRIs impact the levels of both serotonin and norepinephrine. Aside from treating depression, SNRIs are sometimes used to treat other conditions, including anxiety disorders and chronic pain, especially chronic nerve pain.
Venlafaxine, sold as Effexor, is the most common SNRI prescribed by doctors in Australia. Medications managing two chemicals in the brain, as SNRIs do, are more likely to come with side effects, Dr Eapen says.
Bupropion and mirtazapine are as effective as SSRIs and SNRIs. And both are considered first-choice options for treating depression. But trazodone may be a better choice if a person has both depression and insomnia (trouble sleeping).
Practice changer. When you initiate antidepressant therapy for patients who have not been treated for depression previously, select either sertraline or escitalopram. A large meta-analysis found these medications to be superior to other “new-generation” antidepressants. A: Meta-analysis of 117 high-quality studies.
Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) cover both depression and certain anxiety disorders including GAD and PD. However, TCAs are ineffective in SAD and post traumatic stress disorder where SSRIs are required.
SSRIs are the most widely prescribed type of antidepressants. They're usually preferred over other antidepressants, as they cause fewer side effects. An overdose is also less likely to be serious. Fluoxetine is probably the best known SSRI (sold under the brand name Prozac).
Prozac (Fluoxetine)
Prozac gives people more energy than other antidepressants. That being said, it can be helpful for those with low energy. Fluoxetine treats many mental health issues, including depression, OCD, and panic disorder.
Ketamine. Ketamine is a medication originally used for anesthesia and pain relief, but medical professionals also use it to help people with treatment-resistant depression. Unlike other antidepressants, ketamine can improve depression symptoms in just a few hours.
SSRIs are usually the first choice medicine for depression because they generally have fewer side effects than most other types of antidepressant.
The antidepressants most widely prescribed for anxiety are SSRIs such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, and Celexa. SSRIs have been used to treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Takeaway. The FDA has recently approved brexanolone (Zulresso) and esketamine (Spravato) to treat depression. These new approaches for treating depression appear to offer some worthwhile advantages compared to SSRIs and SNRIs, including acting in hours as opposed to days or weeks.
SSRIs are the most widely prescribed antidepressant. They're usually preferred over other antidepressants, as they cause fewer side effects. An overdose is also less likely to be serious. Fluoxetine is probably the best known SSRI (sold under the brand name Prozac).
Around 60% of people respond by about two months to the drugs with about a 50% reduction in their symptoms - an improvement in mood, better sleep and so on.
SSRI and SNRI drugs are both used to treat depression, but they function differently. SNRI drugs may be more effective, but they tend to produce more side effects. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are used to treat depression.
Two of the most common SNRIs are duloxetine and venlafaxine, but three others are also available.
Antidepressant SNRIs help relieve depression symptoms, such as irritability and sadness, but some are also used for anxiety disorders and nerve pain. Here's how they work and what side effects they may cause.