suicide related to discontinued antidepressents?

Answer 1

I dont know, I guess there must be some, but if the withdrawal is properly supervised and done gradually there should be minimal problems.

Answer 2

Antidepressents should always be discontinued gradually. If I even miss a couple of doses in a row, I feel very anxious, have a hard time sleeping and sometimes even feel sick to my stomach. I must ask...why would you discontinue? If you are clinically depressed you really should just get used to the fact that you may be on them probably for the rest of your life. Don't let anyone ever tell you that it is wrong to take them. There is absolutely nothing wrong w/ taking a medication if it can increases your quality of life. It is no different than taking medication for physical ailments. The bottom line is that it is your life and you need to do everything you can for yourself to stay happy and healty. Best Wishes!

Answer 3

Probably a variety of reasons. Post-traumatic stress is one. And there is a high percentage of rape in the military, someone I know told me of her niece who was raped and the military tried to cover it up but she fought until she got justice in the case, nonetheless she was broken for a couple of years after coming home from Afghanistan. I imagine that military are being treated with the same anti-depressants that are sending some over the edge, they may blunt the conscious but don't heal the problems. I think the rate would be much higher if we only knew how many "accidents" that happen within a short time after some return home, have heard of it here in Oklahoma, within a week or a month they die in an auto accident which they are driving. ***Leroy has a great point. I heard an interview with a soldier who said that the war was not like the combat video games he had grown up playing. When reality hit home it was totally different than his expectations.

Answer 4

Hmm,wouldnt be surprised,I was on an anti deppressant for IBS,sounds strange i know ,but a side effect of the tablet cured it.

The drug company withdrew the tablets with no warning and thousands of people are having horrendous withdrawals from it.

They have even set up a forum for helping each other.

It was called motival.

I wasnt as bad as some are because i only took 1 a day.My doctor wanted to give me an alternative,but no way will i go through the last 3 months again.

Please tell me its not you who is suicidal,if it is there is a lot of help out there,if it is motival you were on visit this forum.

www.patient.co.uk/thread.asp?thread=5584&noscript=noscript

These people are helping each other. Good luck

Answer 5

People who take anti-depressants often take 2-3 weeks to feel the effects of the medication, when they stop cold-turkey, the medication stays in your body for only 24 hours and there is an immediate rebound effect often characterised by high anxiety, and severe depression. Almost all anti-depressants have to be tapered off slowly. Suicide is the most highly correlated effect of depression, so coming off the treatment for depression is likely to increase the chances of making a suicide attempt.

Answer 6

Unfortunately it is VERY possible. I'm on anti-depressants and once stopped them suddenly (despite the pleas from my gp and cpn) as I felt better and didn't need them anymore. Within a week I was being dragged off a railway bridge by the police and sectioned under the MHA. I was so suicidal before I went on the anti-depressants in the first place and coming off them suddenly caused my original symptoms to come back even worse than before. I'm glad to say that I'm now back on them and doing much better!

Answer 7

Not sure, but if you go off them suddenly without any guidance, you probably might feel pretty sh*t.
Not that this is conclusive at all, but my uncle committed suicide within a few days of chucking his meds, cold turkey.
Whether it is related or not, your better off with some help to get you through.

Answer 8

it is possible
but some antidepressants have the side effect of predisposition to suicidal tendencies in some people
there are many factors involved in the act of suicide

Answer 9

First off, all psychiatric / neurological medications carry a suicide risk. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants (a.k.a. mood stabilizers), all of them. It's not just SSRIs. However, many of the illnesses have an inherently greater risk of suicide than you'd get from the meds.



But look at those odds and think about how ill you are now. Take into account the odds of your illness killing you.

Lifetime chance of death by suicide:

Bipolar Disorder 15.50%
Mixed Drug Abuse 14.70%
Major Depression 14.60%
Epilepsy1 13.00%
Dysthymia 8.65%
OCD 8.15%
Panic/Anxiety 7.15%
Personality Disorders 5.05%
Alcoholism 4.20%
Cancer 1.30%
General Population 0.72%

From the article where I got the above statistics, Reducing suicide risk
in psychiatric disorders:

In a review of 22 studies—some including patients with bipolar or recurrent unipolar major depression—risk of death by suicide was reduced at least 5-fold, based on an informal comparison of pooled rates in treated versus untreated samples. Based on quantitative meta-analysis, the pooled risk of death by suicide was reduced nearly 9-fold (or by 89%) in patients who received lithium maintenance treatment compared with those who did not. The risk for suicide attempts fell nearly 10-fold in a compilation of 33 studies (Table 2).

For schizophrenia and other primary psychotic disorders, little research exists to indicate that atypical antipsychotics reduce suicide risk. Evidence is emerging, however, that clozapine may offer this benefit, in addition to its well-substantiated clinical superiority in treatment-resistant psychotic illness.

Another study associated olanzapine with a 2.3-fold lower risk of suicidal behavior, compared with haloperidol.

In Depressionland things aren't as cheerful.

antidepressants of various kinds may tend to reduce the risk of suicidal behavior, but any such effect is small and statistically nonsignificant (Baldessarini et al, 2003, unpublished)
tricyclic antidepressants may yield lower rates of suicidal behavior than selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Similarly, however, such trends reflect highly variable research methods and inconsistent findings and do not hold up to quantitative analysis (Baldessarini et al, 2003, unpublished).


Some of the above disorders kill in other ways. In addition to the higher suicide rate, epileptics in general have a higher mortality rate. Treating the seizures reduces the risk of death in all of its various forms. And, as it turns out, taking the meds DOES NOT increase the risk of SUDEP or status epilepticus after all. So we're a lot less likely to die if we just take our goddamn meds.




The complex calculus is: how much more likely are you to off yourself sooner by taking a med now than later by not taking anything at all?

I can't answer that question.

You alone can't answer that question.

It takes you, the people around you who have seen how your behavior has changed (whomever you like and trust in these matters, e.g. family, friends, coworkers), one good psychiatrist and at least one good therapist and preferably another counselor of some kind (e.g. a support group leader, a priest / minister / rabbi / spiritual advisor, a competent school counselor, you get the idea).

It doesn't matter what the problem is - major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, schizophrenia, OCD, panic/anxiety, neuropathic pain - they all suck donkey dong and they can all potentially kill you.

If they are severe enough.

Answer 10

I cant remember any off habnd but weren't there cases of long term valium use I think it was, or was it vikenan(spelling?) linked to it?