If your doctor or health visitor says your baby is healthy, fluoxetine can be used during breastfeeding. It has been used in many breastfeeding mothers without any problems.
Fluoxetine passes into breast milk, usually in small amounts. It has been linked with side effects in very few breastfed babies. It is important to continue taking fluoxetine to keep you well. Breastfeeding will also benefit both you and your baby.
If you notice that your baby isn't feeding as well as usual, or seems unusually sleepy, or if you have any other concerns about your baby, then talk to your health visitor or doctor as soon as possible. Some medicines and fluoxetine can interfere with each other and increase the chances of you having side effects.
Tell your doctor if you're taking these medicines before you start fluoxetine :. Do not take St John's wort, the herbal remedy for depression, while you are being treated with fluoxetine as this will increase your risk of side effects. Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you're taking any other medicines, including herbal remedies, vitamins or supplements.
Fluoxetine is one of a group of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. These medicines are thought to work by increasing the levels of a mood-enhancing chemical called serotonin in the brain. You may see an improvement in your symptoms after 1 to 2 weeks, although it usually takes between 4 and 6 weeks before you feel the full benefits. That's because it takes around a week for fluoxetine levels to build up in your body, and then a few weeks longer for your body to adapt and get used to it.
Do not stop taking fluoxetine after 1 to 2 weeks just because you feel it is not helping your symptoms. Give the medicine at least 6 weeks to work. Antidepressants like fluoxetine help to jump start your mood so you feel better. You may notice that you sleep better and get on with people more easily because you're less anxious. You will hopefully take in your stride little things that used to worry you.
Fluoxetine won't change your personality or make you feel euphorically happy. It will simply help you feel like yourself again. Don't expect to feel better overnight, though. Some people feel worse during the first few weeks of treatment before they begin to feel better.
Once you're feeling better it's likely that you will continue to take fluoxetine for several more months. Most doctors recommend that you take antidepressants for 6 months to a year after you no longer feel depressed. Stopping before that time can make depression come back. A few people may get sexual side effects, such as problems getting an erection or a lower sex drive. In some cases these can continue even after stopping the medicine.
Speak to your doctor if you are worried. If you've been feeling better for 6 months or more, your doctor may suggest coming off fluoxetine. Your doctor will probably recommend reducing your dose gradually over several weeks - or longer, if you have been taking fluoxetine for a long time. This is to help prevent any extra side effects you might get as a reaction to coming off the medicine.
These include:. Do not stop taking fluoxetine suddenly, or without talking to your doctor first. However, sometimes people respond better to one antidepressant than to another. Talk to your doctor if you aren't feeling any better after 6 weeks.
Fluoxetine does not affect any type of contraception including contraceptive pills or emergency contraception. There's some evidence that fluoxetine can reduce the quality of sperm - but it's not known whether this reduces male fertility.
The effect should reverse once you stop taking the medicine. Speak to your doctor if you're concerned. Some antidepressants, particularly SSRIs, are considered safe to take while pregnant and breastfeeding. Women and their doctors must make a risk-benefit calculation, Dr. Some people need medication indefinitely, but many do not.
This has two purposes, Dr. Cox says: One, it reduces the chance of withdrawal symptoms. Two, if you start to decrease your dose and your anxiety or depression worsens, you can increase back to your previous dose easily. Think you might be dealing with depression or anxiety? I came home and enrolled at a community college.
That was my worst period — I was very depressed. For months I had trouble sleeping. I was jittery. I had brain zaps. My anxiety was pretty ramped up. I would feel numbness in my extremities — generally my arms. Eventually I went back to school full-time, and I remember doing OK, feeling somewhat better.
While my brother took the same medicine over the same period and had a normal sexual life, I had a lack of sexual interest. I had erections, and I have regularly masturbated my entire life. Some also took antidepressants; I think there are a lot of people like me out there. Your brain develops around them.
It was , about the time GlaxoSmithKline released Seroxat. I was one of the first people to be given it. I was prescribed 20mg, the basic dose, to start with.
It helped me: I got through school, I went to uni, I went to work. But I had side-effects from the off: profuse sweating, low libido. I managed to work, as a sales rep, for years. But by , by which time I was up to 60mg, I had tried on numerous occasions to withdraw. I tried to go back to 20mg, but my words became slurry, so the doctor put me back up to 60mg.
I tried to take my life. A psychiatrist once said to me that coming off Seroxat is harder than quitting heroin. That really hit home. I have now been unable to work for four years. I also have no libido. Since the age of 30, I have had no feelings in that regard whatsoever.
The drug takes your emotions away. I suppose I was a depression snob. A purist. Why should I take antidepressants? Increasing the available neurotransmitters might have the desired effect of alleviating depression, lowering neuropathic pain, or improving one's thought process, but it can also have unwanted effects.
The potential side effects of antidepressants are many, and they can range from mildly annoying to debilitating and even life-threatening. Beyond that, there's the issue of antidepressants becoming less effective over time. As we've learned more about the long-term side effects, some of the top concerns that have emerged have to do with weight gain and diabetes. However, many other side effects can continue long term and can have a negative impact on your quality of life.
In , the medical journal Patient Preference and Adherence published a paper looking at what people taking antidepressants long-term had to say about the side effects that they've seen. The main side effects they complained about included:. Many of the participants wanted more information about the long-term risks of their medication. Some people noted that they'd had to try multiple antidepressants before finding one that worked well for them and was tolerable.
However, more than two-thirds of the people questioned said the medication helped them cope with life. About one-fifth of the participants said antidepressants helped them to function well. However, some said that if they'd known about the side effects and possibility of withdrawal, they would never have started taking the medication at all.
You should never stop taking antidepressants suddenly. Talk to your doctor about the proper way to wean off of them. Know that you may need to try several drugs before finding the best one for you. While you're on the medication, stay vigilant for side effects, and weigh how significant they are versus how much the drug helps you.
You should involve your doctor in any decisions you make regarding antidepressant use. That said, you're the only one who can decide whether the benefits of taking a medication outweigh the drawbacks. A study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests the long-term risk of weight gain from antidepressants that alter serotonin receptors could be significantly higher in women than in men, possibly due to differences in how serotonin is used. Over time, that can really add up.
Weight gain can have negative effects on your self-esteem as well as your health. Several studies have noted what appears to be a link between antidepressant use and problems with blood sugar regulation, including type 2 diabetes.
A systematic review published in a edition of the journal Diabetes Care examined this relationship to get a better feel for what's going on. They looked at 22 studies, including a couple with more than 4, participants. Here's a look at some of the findings that prompted the review:. The aim of the review was to determine whether antidepressants raise the risk of diabetes in people who didn't have it when they started on the medications.
They concluded that some antidepressants affect blood sugar regulation and that the drugs could be a risk factor for diabetes. However, the larger and more recent studies they looked at suggested that the risk was small. They do say, though, that higher doses appear to be linked to greater risk. Also, in some cases, people who have developed type 2 diabetes while on antidepressants have seen the disease disappear when they went off of the medication. Researchers also note that people who were diagnosed with diabetes were more likely to be prescribed antidepressants, but the relationship there isn't clear.
If you have diabetes, your doctor may want to adjust your diabetes medications while you're on antidepressants to make sure your blood sugar levels are staying in a healthy range. You might also want to focus more on weight loss and exercise since both of those things play a role in diabetes, and your antidepressant may be causing some weight gain.
0コメント