Medication for Depression Anxiety

Depression is a mental illness characterized by severe lengthy bouts of sadness, despair and/or apathy. Often, people with depression also suffer from intense anxiety about aspects of everyday life. While some people with depression and anxiety improve with counseling and therapy, others require medication to stabilize their moods. If you suffer from both depression and anxiety, talk to your doctor about an appropriate course of medication to tackle each disorder.

Antidepressants

• Antidepressants aim to regulate neurotransmitters in the brain that help with mood stabilization. As you decide what antidepressants to take, you must consider each antidepressant's side effects and the precise nature of your depression. A blood test known as cytochrome P450 will help rule out a few medications that may not help you and/or will have especially detrimental side effects. The most common class of antidepressants is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which increase your brain's level of the mood-enhancing neurotransmitter serotonin.

  Other antidepressants aim to increase the brain's dopamine and norepinephrine levels (a class of drugs known as NDRIs) or block receptors that may eliminate mood-enhancing brain chemicals and thus promote depression. In severe cases, a doctor may need to prescribe a highly-effective but potentially dangerous group of drugs known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). Since people who take MAOIs must adhere to a specific diet (that includes low sodium) to prevent potentially fatal side effects, doctor use MAOIs sparingly.

Anti-Anxiety Medication

• In addition to an antidepressants, depressed people who suffer from anxiety issue may also take anti-anxiety medications to limit their worrisome thoughts and fears. Since many anti-anxiety medications are addictive, you must follow your doctor's orders to prevent reliance. Common anti-anxiety medications include Ativan, Valium, Xanax and BuSpar. Most anti-anxiety medications dull the central nervous system and/or increase the levels of calming chemicals or neurotransmitters in the body. Since many antidepressants also work to treat anxiety, your doctor may not prescribe additional anti-anxiety medications.

Medications That Help with Both Anxiety and Depression

• Some antidepressants also help alleviate anxiety. SSRIs are especially versatile medications due to their positive impact on the brain's serotonin levels. Serotonin both stabilizes mood and also reduces a person's tendency to have panic attacks or succumb to their anxieties in other ways. Common SSRIs include Prozac, Zoloft and Lexapro. Other antidepressant medications also used to treat anxiety include Duloxetine, the serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor type-SNRI Effexor and the tricyclic antidepressant Pamelor. Since many of these medications may cause side effects, discuss the benefits with your doctor. While SSRIs and other antidepressants help with anxiety too, not everyone notices an impact on both anxiety and depression. Thus, proper medication and dosage often requires patience and perseverance.