What We Do With Antidepressants

My preceptor — the professor who was responsible for teaching me about psychopharmacology — continuously complained about “polypharmacy.”

I would roll my eyes heavenward and give him one of my usual “clever” retorts like,”Who the heck is she? Your cleaning lady, maybe??”

I remember the old days. I actually remember the tail end of the clinical trial of Prozac, before it was approved for general use. I did the clinical trials for Zoloft and Paxil and Effexor and God-knows-what-else.

I remember when you could give an antidepressant and at least this prescriber “felt” that more often than not folks were kind-of, sort-of getting better.

We knew then (and I pretty much tell all my patients) that an antidepressant will only help with the bodily signs of depression — trouble eating and sleeping and concentrating and such.

Very often it is necessary to “supplement” an antidepressant.

Some rules for doing this so that it may actually help exist in the scholarly literature.

I do not know another doctor or psychiatrist who checks them every single time a prescription is made except me. This article is currently the best one online about this.  Interactions among drugs can and should be checked at your pharmacy. You can check them yourself at some pretty good online databases.

Of course, the best way to prevent trouble is first, to get all of your prescription medications at the same pharmacy.

You ought really to inquire about over-the-counter and natural supplement interactions, too.