There are various kinds of medications available to treat mental illness. The mostly used include antidepressants, anti-anxiety, antipsychotic, mood stabilizing and stimulant medications.
There are several medication options available when treating depression. The mostly used include:
- Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), corresponding to citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram oxalate (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), fluvoxamine (Luvox), paroxetine HCI (Paxil), and sertraline (Zoloft).
- Selective serotonin and norepinephrine inhibitors (SNRIs), corresponding to desvenlafaxine (Khedezla), desvenlafaxine succinate (Pristiq), duloxetine (Cymbalta), levomilnacipran (Fetzima), and venlafaxine (Effexor).
- Novel serotonergic drugs corresponding to vortioxetine (Trentellix – formerly called Brintellix) or vilazodone (Viibryd)
- Older tricyclic antidepressants corresponding to amitriptyline (Elavil), imipramine (Tofranil), nortriptyline (Pamelor), and doxepin (Sinequan).
- Medications thought to primarily affect dopamine and norepinephrine, corresponding to: B. Bupropion (Wellbutrin).
- Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), corresponding to isocarboxazid (Marplan), phenelzine (Nardil), selegiline (EMSAM), and tranylcypromine (Parnate).
- Tetracyclic antidepressants, that are noradrenergic and specific serotonergic antidepressants (NaSSAs), corresponding to mirtazapine (Remeron).
- L-methylfolate (Deplin) has been shown to achieve success in treating depression. Classified by the FDA as a medical food or nutraceutical, it’s the lively type of one in all the B vitamins called folate and helps regulate the neurotransmitters that control mood. Although it will not be technically a medicine, it still requires a prescription.
Your doctor can determine which medication is correct for you. Keep in mind that it normally takes 4 to six weeks for medications to take full effect. And if one medication doesn't work, there are a lot of others you possibly can try.
In some cases, a mixture of antidepressants, sometimes called augmentation, could also be crucial. Sometimes an antidepressant together with one other kind of drug, corresponding to a mood stabilizer (corresponding to lithium), a second antidepressant, or an atypical antipsychotic, is essentially the most effective treatment.
Side effects vary depending on the kind of medication you’re taking and should improve as your body adjusts to the medication.
If you select to stop taking your antidepressants, it is crucial that you just progressively reduce the dose over a period of several weeks. For many antidepressants, stopping abruptly could cause discontinuation symptoms or increase the danger of depression relapse. It is very important that you just discuss stopping (or changing) medications along with your doctor first.
Antidepressants, particularly SSRIs, can be effective in treating many sorts of anxiety disorders.
Other anti-anxiety medications include benzodiazepines corresponding to alprazolam (Xanax), clonazepam (Klonopin), diazepam (Valium), and lorazepam (Ativan). These medications carry a risk of addiction and are subsequently not as desirable for long-term use. Other possible unwanted effects include drowsiness, poor concentration and irritability.
The drug buspirone (Buspar) is a singular non-habit-forming serotonergic medication commonly used to treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
Some antiepileptic drugs, corresponding to gabapentin (Neurontin) or pregabalin (Lyrica), are sometimes used off label (without an official FDA indication) to treat certain forms of tension.
Finally, some conventional and atypical antipsychotics have been shown to cut back anxiety symptoms related to the treatment of depression or psychosis and might sometimes be used “off label” to treat anxiety.
Antipsychotics are a category of medicine often used to treat psychotic disorders – conditions during which considering could also be irrational and other people have false beliefs (delusions) or perceptions (hallucinations) – and sometimes to treat mood disorders corresponding to bipolar disorder or major depression develop into . The unwanted effects of various antipsychotics vary, and a few people have more trouble with certain unwanted effects than others. The doctor may change medications or dosages to attenuate unpleasant unwanted effects. A drawback of some antipsychotics is that they might cause unwanted effects corresponding to sedation and problems with involuntary movements, weight gain, and changes in blood sugar or cholesterol, which require regular laboratory monitoring. Different antipsychotics have different side effect profiles, so work along with your doctor to decide on the best medication for you.
Many unwanted effects of antipsychotics are mild and sometimes disappear after the primary few weeks of treatment. Common unwanted effects may include:
- sleepiness
- Fast or irregular heartbeat
- Dizziness when changing position
- Decrease in sexual interest or ability
- Problems with menstruation
- Rashes or skin sensitivity to the sun
- Weight gain
- Muscle cramps
- Restlessness and speed
- Slowing of movement and speech
- Shuffling walk
- Menstrual disorders in women
However, some serious unwanted effects are possible, especially with long-term use of antipsychotics. These unwanted effects include:
- Tardive dyskinesia: This is a movement disorder that causes unusual and uncontrollable movements, normally of the tongue and face (e.g. protruding the tongue and smacking the lips) and sometimes jerking and twisting movements of other parts of the body. It will be treated by taking deutetrabenazine (Austedo) or valbenazine (Ingrezza).
- Neuroleptic malignant syndrome: This is a potentially fatal condition characterised by severe muscle stiffness (stiffness), fever, sweating, hypertension, delirium and sometimes coma.
- Agranulocytosis: This is a disease characterised by a pointy decline within the variety of infection-fighting white blood cells. This condition can leave the person vulnerable to infections and at the next risk of death. Agranulocytosis has been particularly related to Clozaril, where it might occur in 1 in 100 patients. People taking Clozaril might want to have regular blood tests to closely monitor white blood cell counts. However, all antipsychotics carry an FDA warning indicating that as a category they carry a risk of lowering white blood cell counts.
- Changes in blood sugar and cholesterol: Some atypical antipsychotics could cause a rise in blood sugar (which might eventually result in diabetes) and blood lipids corresponding to cholesterol and triglycerides. Regular blood tests are required to watch these aspects.
If the unwanted effects of antipsychotics are particularly bothersome, your doctor may change medications or dosages, or sometimes add additional medications, to counteract unwanted effects corresponding to weight gain or high blood fat levels. The newer atypical antipsychotics seem like significantly higher tolerated and have fewer unwanted effects corresponding to movement disorders or drowsiness. However, they require monitoring of weight and metabolic risks, which seem like higher than those of older generation antipsychotics.
Newer antipsychotics include:
Olanzapine/samidorphan (Lybalvi)
Another group of medicines called stimulants will be used for certain disorders, most notably attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The mostly used stimulants include amphetamine-salt combination (Adderall, Adderall Recently, the FDA approved a once-daily mixed salt treatment of an amphetamine product called dextroamphetamine-amphetamine (Mydayis).
A category of medicine called alpha-agonists are non-stimulant drugs which might be also sometimes used to treat ADHD. Examples include clonidine (Catapres) and guanfacine (Intuniv).
Atomoxetine (Strattera) also has FDA approval for the treatment of ADHD. It is a non-stimulant agent that’s more just like the SNRI antidepressants. However, the agency has also warned that children and teenagers who take it could have suicidal thoughts.
The antidepressant buproprion (Wellbutrin) can be sometimes used to treat ADHD.
The FDA requires all ADHD medications to incorporate patient medication guides that detail the intense consequences of taking the medications, including a rather higher risk of stroke, heart attack and sudden death, in addition to psychiatric problems corresponding to manic or psychotic.
Many medications used to treat mental disorders in adults are also used to treat the identical disorders in children. However, doctors often adjust the doses administered and monitor the condition more closely.
The FDA has found that antidepressants may increase the danger of suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents with depression and other psychiatric disorders. If you’ve gotten any questions or concerns, discuss them along with your doctor.
Medication cannot cure mental illness. Rather, they serve to manage lots of essentially the most troubling symptoms and sometimes enable individuals with mental disorders to return to normal or near-normal functioning. Relieving symptoms with medication can even improve the effectiveness of other treatments, corresponding to psychotherapy (a type of counseling).