Medicinal treatment
If you suffer from depression, the amount of signalling substances (neuro transmitters) is reduced in your brain. The most important signalling substances are
- serotonin
- noradrenaline
- dopamine
When we treat depression with antidepressants, the amount of signalling substances in the brain is increased and that makes your mood normal.
During the last 40 years there has been a rapid development in the medicinal treatment of depression. Many types of antidepressants have been developed, which are all effective. If you take this medicine correctly, you can nearly always improve your condition within a relatively short time.
Most people are treated by their GP
The treatment of depression was previously often a task for the specialist. Today most people with depression are given medicinal treatment by their own GP because we now have different types of newer antidepressants. Common to all of them is that they
- are effective against depression
- are effective after a relatively short time
- often have few or short-term adverse effects
- are not addictive
- are not poisonous even if an overdose is taken
- don't require that you go for regular checkups with blood tests etc.
The treatment with antidepressants should always be combined with regular talks with your doctor. During these talks the doctor will give you detailed information about the disease and about the advantages and disadvantages (adverse affects) that the treatment might have.
Follow the doctor's advice
The goal of the treatment of depression is to remove your symptoms, in the same way that insulin removes the symptoms of diabetes. The most important thing for an antidepressant treatment to work is that you take your medicine as prescribed by your doctor. It is a very bad idea to reduce the amount of medicine you take or not to take your medicine every day. There are actually quite a lot of people who take less medicine that they should.
We would like to counteract this trend. We do that by informing you of the purpose of the treatment, its effect and about the adverse effects that can occur. When you are well informed, you will know how important it is to take the medicine in the way that your doctor or psychiatrist prescribed it.
Checkups
Everyone who receives medicinal treatment has to go to their doctor for checkups. It is important to monitor accurately how that treatment is working and when you feel well again. In most cases, there are no problems connected with the treatment. You will become well again on the medicine that your doctor recommends. Two to three weeks will pass before you begin to notice the effect of the medicine. It is therefore very common not to feel well until after four to six weeks of treatment.
In rare cases the medicine and the dose that your doctor has prescribed doesn't work effectively. Luckily, your doctor or psychiatrist has many possibilities of improving your treatment by choosing to
- point out how important it is to remember taking your medicine correctly
- continue your treatment for a while longer without making any changes to it
- give a larger dose of the same medicine
- change to another antidepressant
- combine antidepressants with other forms of medicine
- combine antidepressants and psychotherapy
- combine antidepressants and ECT
Blood tests
If you are taking one of the newer antidepressants (SSRI), it is not necessary to monitor the treatment with blood tests. But if you are taking a TCA (tricyclic antidepressants) the amount of TCA in the blood has to be measured. This is done by taking a blood test eight days after you have started your treatment. The blood test must be taken 12 hours after you took your last dose, and the dose will then be adjusted according to the results of the blood test. The amount of TCA in the blood should be checked regularly during your treatment.