What about Side Effects of Taking Antidepressants
Roughly 20% to 30% of people experience side effects serious enough to make them stop taking the medication. Minor side effects such as headache, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, sweating, tremor, and dry mouth usually ease or go away within a few days or weeks.
More serious or annoying side effects include nervousness and agitation, panic, insomnia, daytime drowsiness, loss of libido or other sexual problems, and weight gain. In very rare cases patients may experience an increase in suicidal thoughts.
Sometimes such side effects can be serious enough that you should ask your doctor to adjust or switch your medication.
“I ask my patients to come in for a visit within one to two weeks after I prescribe an antidepressant, to make adjustments, if necessary,” says Dr. Papakostas. Sometimes lowering the dosage can eliminate side effects.
Psychiatrists usually recommend avoiding alcohol if you are depressed and/or taking an antidepressant because alcohol is itself a depressant.
And since most of the drugs are equally effective, if you dislike the side effects of the one you’re taking, you can usually switch. “I took Lexapro, but I got so jumpy that I stopped taking it,” says Meyers.
Zoloft provided her with the calm and relief she was looking for: “I felt like I was coming to peace with myself, and I was better able to use humor to diffuse bad feelings.”
Later, when she felt a need to go back on the drugs, she tried Effexor XR, which worked just as well. “There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it,” she says. “When they work, the drugs function so that you’re not fighting yourself.”
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