Reply to Warning: take the warnings about SSRI with teens seriously

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the posting of this article was good as long as folks read more than just the original post. Someone mentioned that Effexor caused manic behavior. I was diagnosed with a terminal illness at 31, whose only cure was a bone marrow/stem cell transplant. I was lucky enough to have a match, and had that transplant. Two years later we had a daugher, and it was at that point that I started having massive anxiety, and panic attacks. I was put on SSRIs for the management of that instead of taking daily xanax. It took me almost 7 years to find an SSRI that didn't have unbearable side effects. For me that was viibrd. But what I learned in the process is that:
a) Those FDA warnings should be there for people of any age, not just teenagers. SSRIs are very important in the treatment of what is a very serious illness in clinical depression (my wife has this and is on Effexor for it). But all of them have side effects, and those vary significantly by person.
b) [b]One person's Effexor, that can cause manic behavior or depressed behavior, is another person's savior[/b]. I slowly became hypo-manic and headed towards full mania from Lexapro, not from Effexor. Any of them can cause this (or the opposite - severe depression), and if they do it's important to switch to a different med. I was taken off the Lexapro and immediately put on Zoloft even though we knew Zoloft gave me other side effects I didn't like. Then we slowly tried different meds until viibryd worked for me. It still has some unpleasant side effects, but not as bad as the others.

My point is that it's not a specific brand of SSRI in my experience, or the age, that can cause sudden, severe depression, or sudden or gradual severe mania - it's any of them, and which one depends on the person. Its still pretty rare, but it does happen, and does happen to adults too (I was 37 when I became hypo-manic from Lexapro, and eventually almost manic - was lucky my psychiatrist at the time recognized what it was when I walked in one day and said "I feel better than I've ever felt before".

So SSRIs are a very necessary set of drugs for treating both clinical depression and severe general anxiety disorder, but they absolutely should be monitored regularly not just by parents, but also my a trained psychiatrist who knows what to look for in terms of early signs of severe depression beyond the regular clinical depression, or early signs of mania. If those are detected, my experience is switching to a different SSRI immediately is better than lowering the dose and adding something else. Adding something else may well be a great idea, but given how differently each of these drugs affects different people, switching is also potentially key. Most of all find a good psychiatrist - ask them what they would look for sign wise to determine if the SSRIs could be causing signs of severe depression or hypo-mania (a stage that feels great, but leads to full mania).[/quote]

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

The doctors can only go on statistics. The people who are criticizing OP: are you willing to be the fatal stats, however small it might be?[/quote]

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