How to get the most from depression treatment
Monitor your mood
Monitoring your moods and behavior from time to time can help your doctor treat your depression before it becomes hard to control. Try to observe any patterns of mood swings each week and call your doctor if you aren’t feeling at the top of your game.
Stick with the prescribed treatment.
Depression medicines can take up to eight weeks before they take full effect. Don’t skip doses or quit treatment early. If you don’t take your depression medicine exactly as prescribed, you’re not giving it a fair chance to work.
Strengthen your social support
While you cannot control your depression diagnosis, there are some things you can control. You can seek or create a positive support system for yourself. Whether your social network stems from your spouse, family members, close friends, co-workers, religious organizations, or community groups, support is available.
Develop good habits
Take your depression medicine at the same time every day. It’s easier to remember if you do it along with another activity such as eating breakfast or getting into bed. Get a weekly pillbox, which will make it easy to see if you’ve missed a dose. Since people sometimes forget a dose now and then, make sure you know what to do if that happens.
See a depression expert
Any doctor can prescribe depression medication, but a prescription alone isn’t the best treatment. You should seek out an expert, like a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Your condition is, by definition, hard to treat. It’s important to talk with a trained professional during your treatment. Although psychologists cannot prescribe medication, they are well-trained in psychotherapy. You can work with a psychologist while taking antidepressants prescribed by your regular doctor, or you can see a psychiatrist for both your depression medication and talk therapy. Try to find someone who has a lot of experience helping people with treatment-resistant depression.
Never stop taking your depression medicine without your doctor’s permission
If you need to stop taking your medicine for some reason, your doctor may want to reduce your dose gradually. If you stop suddenly, you could have side effects and your depression could get worse.
Don’t assume that you can stop taking your depression medicine when you feel better
If you have treatment-resistant depression, you will need to take your antidepressant for several months — or possibly a year — even after you’re feeling better. This type of "maintenance medication" can help prevent you from getting more depressed in the future.
Don’t ignore side effects
Side effects are one of the main reasons that people give up on medication. For instance, in a British study of just over 1,000 people with depression, 65% said they stopped taking their medicine at some point. Of this group, about 45% said side effects were the reason. The results were published in Current Medical Research and Opinion in 2003. If you have side effects, talk to your doctor. See if there’s any way to minimize or eliminate them. However, keep in mind that side effects might be worse when you first start a medicine. Side effects often ease up over time.
Maintain regular sleep habits
Talk to your doctor if you have difficulty falling asleep or maintaining sleep. There are new non-addictive medications available that can help resolve sleep problems. Also, cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown in recent clinical trials to be a helpful adjunct treatment for patients who have impaired sleep efficiency, or anxiety and fears about poor sleep.
