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Medications Articles

When Are You Cured of Depression?

Over fifteen years of experience with reasonably safe drug treatments for depression has given the mental health world a new understanding of the disorder, a more accurate sense of its true course and a new ... Read more... »

Frequently Asked Questions about Serotonin

Serotonin is a common neurotransmitter found in our brains. Neurotransmitters are special chemicals in our brain that help relay signals from one area of the brain to another. Although serotonin is manufactured in the brain, ... Read more... »

Serotonin Syndrome

Serotonin syndrome is the name for a condition when the body has too much serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that regulates many functions, including mood, appetite, and sensory perception. Serotonin syndrome typically occurs when you've taken ... Read more... »

Where Clues Lie Sleeping

Sleep disturbances and depression are anything but strange bedfellows. Nearly all depressed individuals experience sleep problems. At least 80% complain of insomnia — difficulty falling or staying asleep. Indeed, early-morning awakening is a hallmark of ... Read more... »

Medications for Depression

Depression is the most common mental disorder diagnosed. Two treatments are usually recommended for most people who are experiencing depression: psychotherapy and medication. Medication helps some of the symptoms of depression, while psychotherapy helps ... Read more... »

Frequently Asked Questions about the STAR*D Study

The conclusions from the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on November 1, 2006. An overall assessment of the nation's largest real-world study of treatment-resistant ... Read more... »

What is Discontinuation Syndrome?

Psychiatric drugs, such as antidepressants and antipsychotics, are commonly prescribed to treat a wide variety of mental disorders, such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. One of the possible side effects of ... Read more... »

Which Antidepressants Cause the Least Sexual Side Effects?

Sexual side effects and one's libido are an important issue when it comes to antidepressant medications and depression itself. All too often, this issue is ignored when antidepressants are prescribed by a family physician or ... Read more... »

Tackling the Fears of the ‘Worried Well’

It is estimated that millions of people in the U.S. suffer from imaginary illnesses, including a rise in recent years in food intolerances. Are we really a nation of hypochondriacs? The "worried well," it would ... Read more... »

Changing the Treatment Conversation

Sometimes I'm afraid that the U.S. is becoming a nation of people who expect things to come easily to them. I'm doubly afraid that some professionals charged with helping to help ourselves often take the ... Read more... »

Managing Bipolar Disorder

Twenty-five or so years ago, most people diagnosed with bipolar disorder were middle-age adults who had distinct euphoric episodes. Today most people identified with manic-depression present a remarkably different picture of the condition: Not only ... Read more... »

Emerging Bipolar Therapies

Researchers around the world currently are exploring a wide range of possible new treatments for bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder, formerly called manic-depression, involves episodes of extreme mood disturbance ranging from deep depression to unrestrained mania. It ... Read more... »

Research Update on Treatment of Depression in Bipolar Disorder

Depression in bipolar disorder is an important component of bipolar disorder. Yet most bipolar research prior to a few years ago focused more on the overall treatment of the disorder rather than treatments ... Read more... »

The Different Faces of Depression

Depression is not a one-size-fits-all condition. Mental health professionals have long recognized that patients tend to display reasonably distinct clusters of clinical symptoms, and they increasingly regard such clusters as subtypes of depression. The boundaries between ... Read more... »

An Overview of Anxiety and Depression

When stress builds up, there is the potential for it to develop into longer-term problems. Anxiety and depression both are extremely widespread in the modern world, so an awareness of the common symptoms may help ... Read more... »

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