Antidepressant withdrawal reaches millions of people – BBC News

Millions of people suffer from negative side effects in trying to reduce or eliminate antidepressants, says a big report.

The review of the multipartite parliamentary group for drug dependence of prescription addiction concerns half of the patients who exhibit withdrawal symptoms and who, for half of them, will be severe.

Patients must be properly warned, he says. Indications are that the symptoms are usually mild and disappear within a week.

But it is not uncommon for side effects to last for weeks, months or more.

The authors of the journal, Dr. James Davies, of Roehampton University, and Professor John Read, of the University of East London, claim that about four million people in England might experience symptoms when they withdraw antidepressants, and about 1.8 million, serious.

This could include:

• anxiety
• sleep problems
• hallucinations

They reviewed 24 research papers involving more than 5,000 patients in order to draw their conclusions, published in the Journal of Addictive Behaviors.

Some of the comments shared by these patients included:

• "It took me two months of hell to get rid of anti-depressants – it was massively harder than expected."
• "Even though I'm definitely better with this drug, the side effects were devastating – when I tried to remove myself – with" head zaps ", restlessness, insomnia, and mood changes"
• "The difficulty of going out was a difficult road and it took me years to try, doctors could be more informed and more supportive"

Dr. Davies said, "This new research analysis reveals what many patients have known for years: withdrawal of antidepressants often causes severe and debilitating symptoms that can last weeks, months or longer.

"Existing NICE [National Institute for Clinical Excellence] the guidelines do not recognize how withdrawal is common and wrongly suggest that it is usually solved within a week.

"This leads many doctors to erroneously diagnose withdrawal symptoms, often in the form of relapse, resulting in many unnecessary and harmful long-term prescriptions."

At the study

Public Health England will review the new data as part of its review of prescription drug use.

Antidepressants are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the UK and their popularity continues to grow.

According to NHS figures, nearly 65 million of these prescriptions were spent in England in 2016, or 3.7 million more than in 2006.

Antidepressants do not create addiction. And research shows that they can be useful but that they can take a few weeks to become effective.

If you take an antidepressant for four weeks without feeling any benefit, talk to your doctor or mental health specialist to see if you should continue to take it.

ProfWendy Burn, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said, "Antidepressants are an effective, evidence-based treatment for moderate-to-severe depression that saves the lives of many people, but research on what happens when As this review shows, for many people the effects of withdrawal can be severe, especially when antidepressants are stopped abruptly.

"It is good to see that we are focusing more on this." We are pleased that Public Health England is prioritizing prescription drug dependence and withdrawal, and welcomes the referral of NHS England to the United States. National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), requesting that they do the same.