Antidepressant Medication Poop Out

[David Baxter]

Antidepressant Medication "Poop Out"
Johns Hopkins Health Alert
November 11, 2009

A reader from Roswell, Georgia asks: “I have been taking 20 mg/day of Celexa (citalopram) for about a year and a half for depression. It was the first medication I tried, and it worked great. For the past two months or so, however, I haven't been feeling great. I have been sleeping a lot, crying a lot, and feeling antisocial. Is it possible for Celexa to "poop out" and just stop working over time? Should I talk to my doctor about increasing my dosage or changing medications? Or maybe this bout with depression is just extra bad and I should tough it out?” Here’s our advice.

Antidepressant tachyphylaxis -- known less formally as the "poop out" effect -- was first described in 1984 when researchers observed that some patients experienced relapse of mood symptoms on antidepressants that had previously been effective therapies. There is some suggestion that serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such as Celexa, are more prone to tachyphylaxis than other antidepressants, such as tricyclic medications like nortriptyline and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) like Effexor.

When antidepressants appear to "poop out," there are four options available to the physician and patient. The first is to increase the medication dosage in an effort to boost the antidepressant effect, assuming the maximum dose is not already prescribed. For example, the maximum dose of Celexa is 60 mg daily. A common pattern with SSRIs is for there to be an initial response to a lower dose that is not sustained, requiring titration over time to higher doses. Increasing the dosage alone may be sufficient to jumpstart recovery.

The second option is to switch antidepressant medications, either to another medication within the same class or to a different class. This method has the benefit of simplicity, in that it continues to be a single medication regimen.

The third and fourth options involve augmentation of the current antidepressant, either with the addition of a second antidepressant or a non-antidepressant augmentation drug. If a second antidepressant is chosen, it is common to add a medication with a different mechanism of action. For example, if someone is already taking an SSRI, the physician might add a tricyclic antidepressant. Non-antidepressant augmentation strategies include lithium, low-dose atypical neuroleptics such as Zyprexa or Risperdal, thyroid hormone, the blood pressure medication Pindolol, or the anti-anxiety drug Buspar (buspirone).

Bottom line: In most cases like yours, the simplest intervention is to increase the dosage of the antidepressant medication you're already taking, particularly because it has been effective in the past and you're not currently taking the maximum dosage. The key to successful treatment of depression is ongoing communication between you and your physician and not settling for partial recovery or resigning oneself to "toughing it out."

[helpuhelpme]

Very interesting; I had no idea that these medications could stop working. I thought they were more like say, adequate vitamin intake. It's not like your body suddenly stops responding to vitamins. (As opposed to meds like Ritalin which can quickly induce tolerance).