One of the common treatments for mental health disorders is prescribed medications. The right medication can be not only life saving but life changing. However, starting a new medication can be difficult for a lot of reasons. It can be hard to tell if a medication is right for you or not at the beginning.
The pros
Medication can help control symptoms of many disorders. For some, it can alleviate depression, anxiety, increase quality of sleep, reduce hallucinations or delusions, and many other benefits. Mood regulation can be especially helpful for those with bipolar, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, and much more. These disorders are characterized by worsening quality of life due to inability to regulate mood.
The important thing to remember is that medication is not a panacea. It doesn’t cure mental illness. As of right now, we don’t know of any cures for different mental health disorders. Pairing medication with other changes, like through therapy, diet, habits, and more, is the most effective way of improving overall mental health symptoms for those who need medication.
Medication can make it easier for someone to go back to being themselves. It can improve quality of life by increasing motivation to engage in self-care and social life. It can work to decrease numbness and loss of enjoyment in everyday life, something that comes with severe depression. It can work to make leaving the house easier.
The cons
One of the well-known cons of psychiatric medication is the side-effects. Side-effects can range from kind of annoying to completely intolerable. These side-effects can also be temporary or last for as long as you’re taking your medication. Many medications also have severe withdrawal symptoms that can make coming off them very difficult.
The worst part? These side-effects may be pushed through only to find out that the medication isn’t the right fit for you. Maybe it doesn’t relieve symptoms enough, or at all. Maybe the side-effects just never go away and affect your quality of life just as much as the disorder they’re meant to treat. The problem is that it’s hard to know what will happen until you give the medication enough time to reach therapeutic levels in your system.
Therapeutic levels usually take about 4-6 weeks for most anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. Some anti-anxiety medications can also take this long to see an effect. This point is where you usually see the most benefit and hopefully side-effects have subsided by then. However, it’s hard to force yourself to wait a month and a half, or longer, when you’re already feeling horrible. This is definitely a major con of medication.
There is a test available that can determine how good of a fit a medication could be for you. GeneSight is used by many practices to check how well a medication may be tolerated or work for people. It’s usually not covered by insurance, though.
What to do if your medication experience is hard
Unless the side-effects you’re experiencing are genuinely intolerable, the recommendation is usually to try and power through until the medication reaches therapeutic levels. By then, most symptoms reduce in severity or go away entirely. Of course, some side-effects require immediate attention. Allergic reactions, serotonin syndrome, and suicidal ideation all need to be addressed as soon as symptoms appear.
The best advice anyone can give is to talk openly with your prescriber. Let them know how you’re doing on your medication. They want to know if it’s helping or hurting you. Lying about the severity of your side-effects or downplaying the lack of effectiveness is not going to help you long-term. And it doesn’t help your prescriber know how to help you, either.
Never stop a medication without your prescriber’s advice and guidance. Some medications need to be titrated off or else they can have severe withdrawal symptoms. It can be dangerous to suddenly discontinue medications without guidance.
At the end of the day, remember that you are in charge of whether or not you take medication. Ask as many questions as you need to from your prescriber. Get a second opinion from another prescriber if you feel unsure. But remember that giving medication a chance could be worth it.
