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Exactly. We know that they DO work, but we don’t know how. Not a doctor and this is not brain health advice, but SSRIs take several weeks to start working. If
by more_corn 2y ago
Exactly. We know that they DO work, but we don’t know how.
Not a doctor and this is not brain health advice, but SSRIs take several weeks to start working.
If they work because “more serotonin in the brain treatments depression” they should start working instantly. The two week lag indicates that they work based on a secondary effect caused by long term elevation of serotonin.
And it’s maddening that we don’t seem to know what that effect is.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- marssaxman 2y agoSometimes an SSRI does start working instantly. That was my experience the first time I took Zoloft; I remember leaving work early that afternoon for a walk in the park, marveling at the way all the colors in the world had become more vivid. When I tried Zoloft again years later, during another bout of depression, I felt nothing: not right away, not for weeks after, no change at all. I suspect that there is not really any such ailment as depression, any more than there is any such disease as fever; that is, the pattern of symptoms we see represents a reaction to some underlying problem, and many different kinds of problems may cause similar symptoms, while requiring different solutions.
- StefanBatory 2y agoFor me sertaline was way more gradual. And it was never that I suddenly felt right - it's just that after few weeks I noticed my floor on feeling very down for up a bit. (I got prescribed it for anxiety)