David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Keep looking for right depression medication
By David Mrazek, M.D., Mayo Clinic
Sept. 3, 2010
We talk about depression as if it were a single entity.
This is clearly not the case. What we refer to as depression is actually many illnesses that are characterized by profound sadness. No one wants to be sick, but it's less disastrous to be sick if there's a treatment that that can effectively treat your condition.
For many of you with depression, when you take an antidepressant medication, you'll feel better. I conducted a study supported by the National Institutes of Health, rather than a pharmaceutical company, to try to identify which patients will respond to escitalopram, known as Lexapro, and which ones will not. We treated more than 600 patients with moderately severe depression. Half of the patients who took the antidepressant were feeling well within two months, and another 20 percent were feeling a lot better. Unfortunately, 30 percent were not much better.
If depression is a new problem, you have every reason to be optimistic you'll be among the 70 percent of patients who have a good response to antidepressant treatment. When an antidepressant does work, both you and your doctor are grateful.
However, a dangerous situation can evolve if a series of antidepressant medications don't work. If no medication provides relief after a reasonable number have been tried, it becomes clear that you're suffering from treatment-resistant depression and that another form of treatment needs to be tried. However, you should have the opportunity to try all of the classes of antidepressant medications before coming to the conclusion that medications won't help.
A really critical problem for many of you is that you can't get access to appropriate medical care. This is what healthcare reform should be about. Everyone should have access to effective treatments. Unfortunately, many still don't.
A final thought is that making a persistent effort to find an effective treatment usually results in success. For those of you who can't find help, this isn't comforting. However, for those who do have access to care, the odds of being able to feel well again are good.
By David Mrazek, M.D., Mayo Clinic
Sept. 3, 2010
We talk about depression as if it were a single entity.
This is clearly not the case. What we refer to as depression is actually many illnesses that are characterized by profound sadness. No one wants to be sick, but it's less disastrous to be sick if there's a treatment that that can effectively treat your condition.
For many of you with depression, when you take an antidepressant medication, you'll feel better. I conducted a study supported by the National Institutes of Health, rather than a pharmaceutical company, to try to identify which patients will respond to escitalopram, known as Lexapro, and which ones will not. We treated more than 600 patients with moderately severe depression. Half of the patients who took the antidepressant were feeling well within two months, and another 20 percent were feeling a lot better. Unfortunately, 30 percent were not much better.
If depression is a new problem, you have every reason to be optimistic you'll be among the 70 percent of patients who have a good response to antidepressant treatment. When an antidepressant does work, both you and your doctor are grateful.
However, a dangerous situation can evolve if a series of antidepressant medications don't work. If no medication provides relief after a reasonable number have been tried, it becomes clear that you're suffering from treatment-resistant depression and that another form of treatment needs to be tried. However, you should have the opportunity to try all of the classes of antidepressant medications before coming to the conclusion that medications won't help.
A really critical problem for many of you is that you can't get access to appropriate medical care. This is what healthcare reform should be about. Everyone should have access to effective treatments. Unfortunately, many still don't.
A final thought is that making a persistent effort to find an effective treatment usually results in success. For those of you who can't find help, this isn't comforting. However, for those who do have access to care, the odds of being able to feel well again are good.
