Posted by Bekka H. on March 23, 2002, at 14:25:54
In reply to Re: Continued weight gain with Prozac? » Bekka H., posted by Amy Hopkins on March 23, 2002, at 13:38:38
Hi Amy. I'm sorry, I don't know the exact answer to that question, but I think it would be highly variable depending on one's metabolism, one's individual response to the drug, one's level of activity and diet. Several years ago, I was on Zoloft, and I gained ten pounds in spite of a lot of physical activity and low calorie intake. I don't know whether I would have gained more if I had not exercised so much or if I had stayed on it longer.
When the ssri's first came out, the drug company literature said that patients tended to lose weight on those meds. They may have said that because most clinical drug trials are only six to eight weeks long and many patients do lose weight in the first few months on an SSRI due to the nausea, hyper-peristalsis and gastric hyper-motility that often occur when ssri treatment is initiated. For many, the weight gain seems to occur later (i.e., after the first six to eight weeks), but I don't know how long it persists. I haven't looked at drug company literature for ssri's recently, but the last time I looked, they had revised the "weight loss" possibility to "weight loss or weight gain." I'm sorry, I guess I'm not being very helpful, but that's all I know about it.
poster:Bekka H.
thread:99640
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020322/msgs/99662.html