How do I know if my antidepressant works? When you start taking an antidepressant, you should begin to function better in your daily life before you start feeling better, says Dr. Michael McGee. In other words, you should begin sleeping better, eating better, and having more energy.
Some people start to feel better in 1 to 2 weeks. But the truth is, antidepressants work slowly. It can take up to 2 months before they reach their full effect. If you do notice an improvement in your symptoms in those first couple of weeks, this can be a sign that your antidepressant is a good fit for you.
“Antidepressants can boost your mood and energy,” explained Stith. “Your mind and your body may not know what to do with that energy right away.” However, this is temporary and should improve over time.
Antidepressants can cause unpleasant side effects. Signs and symptoms such as nausea, weight gain or sleep problems can be common initially. For many people, these improve within weeks of starting an antidepressant. In some cases, however, antidepressants cause side effects that don't go away.
You Feel Agitated
Because antidepressants attempt to regulate a chemical imbalance by adjusting the levels of certain neurotransmitters – such as serotonin – someone who takes too high of a dose may experience mood swings and emotional side effects like agitation and confusion.
Some people may notice no change from taking medication for depression, while others may report feeling emotionally blunted. They may no longer report feeling the low and down feelings linked to depression, but may also have trouble feeling the happiness and comfort other people feel.
The effects of antidepressants are thought to be related to neurotransmitters or chemical messengers in the brain, such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. As we mentioned, it can take 1 to 2 weeks for these changes to take effect, with a peak around the 6 to 8-week mark.
Most antidepressants don't provide instant relief of symptoms related to depression, anxiety, and other conditions for which they're prescribed. Rather, you must take them routinely and consistently for several weeks or even months before you notice changes.
1 Day – On the first day of taking an antidepressant medication, most people will feel nothing at all. Some will notice side effects like nausea or vomiting that could be mild.
Roughly half of people taking antidepressants report some degree of blunted emotions, according to a study published in the October 2017 issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders. For people with MDD, dulling one's emotions can be a mixed blessing.
Common side effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) can include: feeling agitated, shaky or anxious.
SSRIs release two chemicals in the brain that kick in at different times, causing a period of negative effects on mental health, the authors report. The first chemical is serotonin, which is released very soon after an SSRI is taken but might not lessen depressive symptoms until after a couple of weeks.
Taking antidepressants may help to lift your mood. This can help you feel more able to do things that don't feel possible while you're depressed. This may include using other types of support for your mental health. See our page on treatments for depression to find other options which may help.
They will help you feel like yourself again and return to your previous level of functioning. (If a person who isn't depressed takes antidepressants, they do not improve that person's mood or functioning - it's not a "happy pill.") Rarely, people experience apathy or loss of emotions while on certain antidepressants.
What is emotional blunting? “Emotional blunting” is a term used to describe having a limited or muted emotional response to events. This could be different from the reaction that you'd typically expect. With this symptom, you may also have difficulty accessing the full range of emotions that you're used to.
Although this is beneficial for someone who's depressed, for someone who does not have depression, taking antidepressant medication can cause serotonin to build up in the body, resulting in serotonin syndrome. When serotonin levels are too high, the person may experience symptoms like: Agitation or restlessness.
Perhaps the fundamental reason why antidepressants are so widely prescribed and used is that they fit with the 'medical model' of mental illness, which has become the standard view in western culture. This model sees depression as a medical condition which can be “fixed” in the same way as a physical injury or illness.
Clinicians generally recommend staying on the medication for six to nine months before considering going off antidepressants. If you've had three or more recurrences of depression, make that at least two years.
It's usually recommended that a course of antidepressants continues for at least 6 months after you feel better, to prevent your condition recurring when you stop.
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. But, he said, “about 80% of people stop antidepressants within a month”.
Since our brain has plenty of active serotonin transporter molecules when we start taking antidepressants, it takes a while before a suppression of the genes that code for the transporter has an effect on serotonin in the brain.
When first starting antidepressants, you may not feel like yourself. Though your depression symptoms might have improved, feelings of extreme sadness can sometimes be replaced by an emotional numbness in which you are neither able to cry nor enjoy a real belly laugh.
One of the widely-reported side effects of SSRIs is 'blunting', where patients report feeling emotionally dull and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to.
Serotonin is a chemical that the body produces naturally. It's needed for the nerve cells and brain to function. But too much serotonin causes signs and symptoms that can range from mild (shivering and diarrhea) to severe (muscle rigidity, fever and seizures). Severe serotonin syndrome can cause death if not treated.