Posted by misty99 on March 2, 2002, at 19:29:09
While doing research on SSRI Apathy Syndrome, I came upon this particular paragraph that I think has been the subject of many debates on this board:
"Nonresponse through the second week of therapy, at least with SSRIs, appears predictive of subsequent nonresponse. However, antidepressant medications should be changed only after it has been established that patients are not responsive after four to six weeks of treatment at therapeutic serum concentrations, at therapeutic doses, or at the maximum dose the patient tolerates if therapeutic dose precipitates bothersome side effects."
I find that first statement interesting because my psychiatrist has said pretty much the same thing. My question would be what type of percentages are we talking about? It seems that if there is a 60% or greater chance that a non response to an SSRI med after two weeks is predictative of a subsequent non response, then there is no way a patient should be kept on that med unless that person prefers to stay on it.
If the percentage is less, that that's telling me that with the extra time to get up to a therapeutic level, that perhap it would be prudent to keep the patient on the medicine.
If there is something I am missing, please let me know. Otherwise, I think we need a translation as to exactly what these folks mean.
Here is the link to the website where this information came from in case anybody is interested:
http://www.oqp.med.va.gov/cpg/MDD/MDD_cpg/content/appendices/mdd_app5_fr.htm
You might have to cut and paste the link into where you type the URL
Misty
poster:misty99
thread:96106
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020301/msgs/96106.html