Medicinal treatment
If you are suffering from depression, the amount of signalling substances (neurotransmitters) are reduced in your brain. The most important signalling substances are:
- serotonin
- noradrenaline
- dopamine
When antidepressants are used, the amount of signalling substances in the brain are increased and that makes your mood normal again.
During the last 40 years, there has been a rapid development in the medicinal treatment of depression. Many types of antidepressants have been developed, all of which are effective. If you take this medicine correctly, you can nearly always improve your condition within a period time.
Most people are treated by their GP
The treatment of depression was usually a task for the specialist. Today, most people with depression are given medicinal treatment by their own GP as well.
As there are different types of newer antidepressants, some of the common features are:
- effective against depression
- effective after a relatively short time
- often have few or short-term adverse effects
- are not addictive
- don't require you to go for regular checkups with blood tests etc.
The treatment with antidepressants should always be combined with regular consultation with your doctor. During these sessions, the doctor will give you detailed information about the disease and about the advantages and disadvantages (adverse affects) the treatment might have.
Follow the doctor's advice
The goal of treating depression is to remove your symptoms, in the same way that insulin removes the symptoms of diabetes. For an antidepressant treatment to work, it is important for you to take your medicine as prescribed by your doctor. It is unwise to reduce the amount of medicine you take on your own without first consulting your doctor. There are actually a lot of people who take less medicine that they should.
We would like to counteract this trend. We do that by informing you the purpose of the treatment, its effect and the adverse effects that can occur. When you are well informed, you will know how important it is to take the medicine the way 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 the treatment is working and when you feel well again. 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 dosing 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.
- extending your treatment duration longer without making any changes to it.
- give a larger dose of the same medicine.
- change to another antidepressant.
- combine antidepressant with other forms of medicine.
- combine antidepressant and psychotherapy.
- combine antidepressant and ECT.