Antidepressants can cause withdrawal symptoms – here’s what you need to know
Millions of people worldwide take antidepressants to help with depression. But as a recent BBC Panorama found, many aren’t aware of the fact that antidepressants can cause withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking them. For some, these symptoms can be severe and long-lasting. Here’s what you should know.What causes antidepressant withdrawal?This process of adaption is often termed physical dependence, which leads to tolerance (lessening effects over time) and withdrawal when stopping.
Millions of people worldwide take antidepressants to help with depression. But as a recent BBC Panorama found, many aren’t aware of the fact that antidepressants can cause withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking them. For some, these symptoms can be severe and long-lasting. Here’s what you should know.
What causes antidepressant withdrawal?
- This process of adaption is often termed physical dependence, which leads to tolerance (lessening effects over time) and withdrawal when stopping.
- After even just a few weeks of antidepressant use, our serotonin receptors become less sensitive, meaning that we probably need more serotonin to elicit the same effects.
- This is what causes withdrawal symptoms.
What are the symptoms?
- Emotional withdrawal symptoms include low mood, anxiety, panic attacks, irritability, anger, crying spells and feeling suicidal.
- There are a few ways to distinguish withdrawal symptoms from relapse – the return of a past mental health condition.
- Physical withdrawal symptoms will be distinct from the original condition, and sometimes the emotional symptoms are recognisably different from the symptoms you initially had.
How long do withdrawal symptoms last?
- Many people (including practitioners) believe withdrawal symptoms only last as long as it takes the drug to leave your system – typically, days or weeks.
- Clinical studies have also shown that antidepressant withdrawal symptoms can last for weeks, months and, in some people, years.
Does withdrawal only happen with long-term use?
- One patient survey found only a small minority experienced withdrawal after taking the drug for a few months.
- But more than half who’d taken antidepressants longer than three years experienced withdrawal – of which, half reported moderate or severe symptoms.
How should you stop antidepressants?
- While some patients can tolerate this, we know that for many long-term antidepressant users, this approach produces intolerable withdrawal symptoms that can make it impossible to stop these drugs.
- The last few milligrams of these drugs are the hardest to come off, so need to be reduced particularly carefully.
- But it’s important people are made aware of the risk of withdrawal effects, so they can make an informed decision.