Historically, psychiatric bodies believed antidepressant withdrawal was mild and short and research into withdrawal was relatively limited. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrist guidelines state that generally, patients should stop the medicine after being in remission for about nine months to one year. On average, Australians take the drug for about four years, and according to the Royal Australian College of GPs, half of these are long-term users. “So six weeks is a short period of time in terms of the rearrangement of the circuits that happen as a consequence of taking the drug away.”Ībout one in seven Australian adults take antidepressants, the second-highest rate of all OECD countries. “Antidepressants are thought to work largely by the way they cause connections between nerve cells – synaptic connections – to change over time,” says Prof Ian Hickie, a psychiatrist from the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre. But, once the drugs have done their job, how well do we manage what comes next? They are a critical intervention for millions of people experiencing the debilitation of depression, and can be life-saving. ![]() Antidepressants had played a vital role in restoring and maintaining good health for me for years.
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