First, are you seeing a psychiatrist or a general doc? A psychiatrist may not reply, but does schedule regular appointments to discuss how you're doing. That's because that's all they do and so to earn a living they have to keep seeing patients. General docs are really really busy trying to handle everything and so don't ever have the time to get really good at anything. This wasn't true in the past, but the profession evolved to make primary care physicians the sort of triage level who handle simpler things but refer to specialists for complicated things. Mental illness is always complicated. Basically, if you're on a med and it isn't working, then yes, either you need to increase the dose if you're not at the recommended therapeutic dose or if you are and it stopped working after having worked for a time or you need to try something else. You have to do a proper taper off the med, you can't just quit, which is another reason to get a really good psychiatrist, as they do this all day every day and it's all they do and so hopefully they learn to do it well. No guarantee, but you have a better chance of not being harmed. Also, if you have a doctor who doesn't reply when you're having problems, your doc is probably too busy for your needs. Again, if you live in any well-populated area, primary care physicians are incredibly busy and have very tight restrictions imposed on them as to how much time they're allowed to spend with any one patient unless you have a rare one how works for themselves in a concierge practice, but they usually don't take insurance. The growing practice today is for PCP practices to be owned by large health care companies if you live in a well-populated area. Don't know what your particular situation is, but the rule is, if at first you don't succeed, try try again. And are you in therapy so you might in time not need medication anymore? All the best.
This generation of antidepressants is now the most common class used for depression. Examples include citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), paroxetine (Paxil, Pexeva), fluoxetine (Prozac, Sarafem), and sertraline (Zoloft).
Hi there. Yes, I agree that the SSRI's are rally the most popular class of medications overall and that they do help many. Have you tried any of those thus far? I imagine you have if you are on risperdal. When someone is depressed, risperdal is often an add on medication but not THE medication they use to treat the depression. When is the last time you checked in with your doctor? I think you need to discuss the depression you still feel and come up with a plan to tackle that medically (with medication) and also what kind of therapy do you do? Doing both usually nets the best results.
Yes, it can, you should take meds and keep doing medication.
Meds help in reducing symptoms of depression.
It works fast but temporary.
Medication will start working late if you are doing it regularly
Medication helps your mind to stay stable, increase your concentration.
This will be beneficial to fix your depression permanently