In the past year, the number of visits to the depression clinic has been increasing day by day, especially since our hospital was upgraded to the Mental Health Center affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine, and the number of depression patients reported by me has also been increasing. I will answer the most common, most concerned and most asked questions of depression patients to relieve the concerns of the majority of depression patients. Please understand if you are wrong. 1.About the side effects of drugs As the saying goes, medicine is poisonous, and there is indeed some truth in this saying. There are many adverse reactions, especially in the first few days of taking medication, such as dizziness, weakness, loss of appetite, etc., which usually last for three to five days and will be relieved naturally. Therefore, doctors prescribe antidepressant drugs are required to start with a small dose, gradually increase to the treatment amount, so that the body has a process of adaptation to reduce the uncomfortable feeling. Some people worry about the damage to the body itself. Yes, some antidepressants can cause damage to liver and kidney function or decrease in white blood cells, and some cause abnormal electrocardiogram or endocrine disorder. That’s why patients taking antidepressants must request monthly blood tests and electrocardiogram checks. Although the probability of abnormalities is less than ten percent, it can be done so that if problems are found, they can be dealt with early and timely to prevent serious consequences. The stabilization period is at least once every two months. If you do not review your body for more than three months, it means that you are extremely irresponsible to your body. In case there is an abnormality in these indicators of the body, it will definitely cause more damage if it lasts for a long time. If you are responsible for yourself, don’t simply think that doctors prescribe these tests to make money. Some wise patients or family members will offer to do the tests. 2, why do many tests Because there are many reasons that affect mood, many physical diseases can lead to depression. The most common ones are somatic infectious diseases, intracranial infections such as encephalitis, neurosyphilis, hypothyroidism, diseases of endocrine disorders, etc. Therefore, the above mentioned diseases must be excluded. In addition, antidepressant drugs have many adverse effects on some indicators of the body, most commonly on liver and kidney function and white blood cells, and some people with poor diet and low potassium may affect the heart. Some people with poor diet and low blood potassium may affect their heart. Those with abnormalities in these indicators need to be careful with the medication. It is also necessary to review these indicators periodically during the course of the medication, as appropriate. Doctors do examinations in order to better assess the condition of the disease and better evaluate the patient’s physical condition, which is beneficial to the treatment and prognosis. 3.How long do you need to take antidepressant drugs before you can stop taking them? If you are diagnosed with depression, you need a longer period of drug treatment. At present, according to the international guidelines for depression, the first episode needs to be treated with medication for more than one year; with one relapse, it is recommended to take medication for two to three years; with more than two relapses, three to five years; with more than three relapses, lifelong medication may be required. Depression treatment is divided into acute treatment, consolidation treatment, and maintenance treatment. Depression is a chronic and highly relapsing disease, and sufficiently long maintenance treatment is the key to reducing relapse and alleviating disease suffering. 4, about the onset of antidepressants The onset of antidepressants is relatively slow, usually two to four weeks, individual patients need eight weeks. Therefore, you need to take the medication and wait patiently. Some people will ask, “Why do I feel better after eating for three or five days? In fact, at the beginning of the disease, what works is often some auxiliary drugs, such as sleep aids or anti-anxiety drugs. Sleep improved anxiety improved, you will feel much more relaxed. 5, how to stop antidepressant drugs depression is a high recurrence of disease, and depressed patients often get better after thinking about immediately stopping the medication, saying “I’m well, why do I need to take drugs”, a little “good scars forget the pain” taste. As a result, they often relapse sometime after stopping the medication, and the depression even resurfaces in a short period of time, which leads to recurrent attacks and delays. Depression must be taken according to the course of treatment. Some antidepressants have strong withdrawal reactions, and there are serious discomfort after too rapid reduction or discontinuation, such as severe headache, dizziness, nausea, chest tightness and other symptoms. Some patients even go to the general hospital for excessive reactions and do many tests to figure out the cause. My general recommendation for medication reduction is to gradually and slowly reduce the medication, the slower the better, usually by one or half a tablet every two weeks or more, or even by only a quarter of the medication. This allows the body to have a process of adaptation, when the dose is very small naturally stop the drug. 6, taking antidepressants will not be addicted to the problem of antidepressants will not be addictive, this is also the most concerned about the patient, so far, we do not think that antidepressants will become addictive, need a long time to maintain treatment and have withdrawal reaction which bin not equal to addiction. However, psychiatric sleep aids, especially benzodiazepine sleep aids and anxiolytic drugs, are addictive and need to be used with care in clinical practice. Early antidepressant treatment may be combined with such sleep aids for rapid onset of action and to reduce patient suffering. Usually, after the symptoms of anxiety and insomnia are relieved or the antidepressants take effect, the medication needs to be reduced in time, and the discontinuation of the medication also needs a slow and smooth transition process. 7, depression, why doctors prescribed anti-epileptic drugs and drugs for schizophrenia This is also a more serious problem that plagues patients, some people are afraid to take drugs once they look at the instructions, and some people are scared once they check Baidu. Here it needs to be popularized, some of the traditional antiepileptic drugs are proven to have good mood stabilizing effects and are widely used by psychiatry for emotionally unstable patients, especially those with bipolar depression to avoid sharp up and down mood swings, see my article “Why Bipolar Disorder Must Use Emotion Stabilizers”, individual refractory depression use these drugs as booster. Some depressions have complex causes and many concomitant symptoms. Small doses of atypical antipsychotics are recommended as booster drugs to improve negative, negative pessimistic thinking and mood in depressed patients, and are also more appropriate for the treatment of depression with psychotic symptoms.