Posted by bleauberry on September 8, 2012, at 15:45:19
In reply to Ad's Take Time To Work (if they do), posted by Phillipa on September 7, 2012, at 12:16:55
The statement is generally true.
But it is not universally true. Antidepressants can work as early as Day 1, or within the first week. I've seen it happen to others and experienced it myself. Savella works by day 3 for me, with benefit already evident on day 1. Of the natural substances, rhodiola frequently works beginning day 1 and becoming quite evident by week 1.
Since it is all a pure guess as to which substance to prescribe a patient, and we don't really know what is wrong with their chemistry, whether a med works fast, slow, or not at all I think is determined by how closely that med targets the actual deficiency of that particular patient. If it's off target....for example an SSRI for someone who really needs more help in NE or dopamine, results are probably going to be less than desired.
Many depressions are not caused by a neurotransmitter imbalance or deficiency. No wonder the drugs fail for those people. Too bad they keep looking for the next drug instead of figuring out they are dealing with some other beast not the one they assumed.
More often than not though, the statement is true. They really don't work as claimed very often, and they do generally take a while to cause all the downstream changes to happen.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1025072
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120830/msgs/1025145.html