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DR MAX PEMBERTON: Here are the ways to come off anti-depressants safely By Dr Max Pemberton Published: 02:09, 10 June 2024 | Updated: 02:14, 10 June 2024 e-mail View comments Antidepressants save lives. There's no doubt about that. They are an effective treatment for moderate and severe depression and can be of incredible benefit for people suffering other crippling mental health conditions, such as anxiety and OCD.

As with all medications, however, they can have side effects and don't work for all. But the biggest worry, for me, is that many people are started on them when they don't really need them. They may have mild depression, or social issues such as relationship difficulties or problems at work that no pill could hope to fix.



Yet doctors dish them out thinking that there's no harm in trying them anyway. And that's a problem. Antidepressants aren't without down sides — and I'm not just talking about side effects, such as drowsiness.

More problematic is the difficulty some people have in stopping taking them. This isn't because they are 'addictive'. The body doesn't crave them in the way it does an addictive substance.

Rather, when they are stopped abruptly, the body takes time to adjust back, and during this process, really nasty symptoms can arise. Antidepressants are an effective treatment for moderate and severe depression and can be of incredible benefit for people suffering other crippling mental health conditions But antidepressants aren't without down sides �.

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