When Your Antidepressant Makes You Gain Weight

I have gained almost 2 stone since I started taking SSRI for anxiety and panic attacks,

I o watch what I eat, mostly salads and fish, or chicken, and small portions, I have a cereal in the morning with skimmed milk,  now and again I may have a scone, never take sugar, I really am carefull what I eat, and yet the weight does not come off.

I do see a pscychiatrist, and he says I have a choice, to take the pills and put on weight, or have the panics and depression, which by the way I still get.

I am addicted to Valium, for over 4o years, butthey never made me put on weight. Any suggestions for me. I also suffer with agoraphobia Thankyou, from Blossom

One of the problems with some SSRIs and Lexapro may be one of them is that they reallly slow you down and make you feel tired. This makes it harder to do a lot of physical activity which would of course help with the weight loss. However if you can get yourself to do some sort of fairly active exercise, you might see your weight coming off even if you do not change your diet. But the other problem is that you are eating the wrong foods to help your appetite and weight. As I mentioned in my book, serotonin is made ONLY when you eat carbohydrates: sweet and starchy foods. And you must eat them without protein. This has been known since l973. Fruit although it is a carbohydrate will not help the brain make new serotonin. You have been avoiding these foods according to your comments. So your antidepressant has been working on perhaps inadequate levels of serotonin all this time. Moreover serotonin TURNS off appetite ( it is another function). So if as I suggest in my book, you have one meal a day that is only carbs and vegetbles, and two snacks a day that are carbohydrate,you would feel better and have less of an appetite and lose weight.

I just had to respond to this as I didn't knowanything about the carbohydrate intake for making serotonin. Very enlightening, I gained weight after my son died 6 years ago, by switching to Effexor from Serzone and upped my dosage of Wellbutrin. Serzone was a sedating antidepressant according to my Psych DR. and changed me as I couldn't get out of bed. Then after I noticed I was gaining weight, which can happen when depression keeps me in bed and ,low activity for a year after always being active before.

I did notice I didn't really have an appetite with my meds, but eventually changed to cymbalta. I still wasn't losing weight and still gaining, but did start a weight loss and fitness program at the club. Also, before this I had surgery and stayed on a low carbohydrate diet that I was very weak and started eating sweets again and was able to do things.

I did quit the gym, after spring arrived and worked in my garden, but started suffereing from carpal tunnel syndrome and eventually, my activity slowed down. Then I had surgery on both hands at different times. So I just wasn't losing weight and really was getting tired of Cymbalta as I do believe it was affecting my weight loss and other things.

So I switched to Serzone, but it was different then when i took it 6 1/2 years ago. I dont' know the difference but can only suggest that I was slowing down, my hormones were changing, life was changing. So I found this medication to cause me to have blurry vision, dizziness, memory loss, lack of concentration, tired all the time, and I started to trip and fall. Also, just hopping out of bed and going down the hall was very scary, I felt I was walking at an angle.

I finally after a good try with them, quit as it was affecting everything. It was hard quiting, and even the lowest dose was giving me all of the bad symtoms.

Anyway, I did lose weight after I went off of Cymbalta, had more  talk therapy and I'm still losing and feel so much better off of the Serzone. I still feel sickish and take my Well butrin, but I really don't think I need to take the high dosage I was. But also I can't go cold turkey either.

I really haven't had much of an appetite either, but do feel better if I haven't eaten to have a carbohydrate of some kind. So I guess that is what is needed right now while i have these headaches and sickish stomach. Also, some nervousness. I can only surmise some of that as withdrawals. I also do not suffer from high blood pressure, so I don't need a sedating anti-depressant. I do take Temazepam for RLS and sleeping with a snoring DH.

I don't see my med dr until later this month, but I know I will not go back on Cymbalta or Serzone or any other antidepressant except for maintaining Wellbutrin. Since being able to fit into my clothes again, and have physical relations with my husband is worth it.

Plus life is less stressful or I am just healthier. I don't know, as we still get disappointing news, stumbling blocks, losses. I just am doing better these days I think...

i dont take antidepressants for depression. they do help other things like my menapause hot flashes.  dont always think that just because they take them that they are depressed.  i can not take hormones due to the type of breast cancer that i had so until you know everything that antidepressants are used for dont judge other people.

sincerely,

tbears13t

I don't know if the hormone you can't take due to cancer is estrogen, but there is a lot of new information about bio-identical progesterone (brand name Prometrium), 300 mg at night, as being a huge help in the mood swings, hot flashes, and poor sleep often associated with the time leading up to menopause (called perimenopause). There is a lot more information on this site of an endocrinologist doctor at the medical center of The University of British Columbia: http://www.cemcor.ubc.ca/

Thank you for your helpful comment and I hope the person whose wife needs help, reads it. What will also help is for patients to request information about the weight gain side effects of their meds, as you did, and then have the physician or psychiatrist try to find more acceptable replacements. If none exists, as I mentioned in my blog, it is important to help the patient follow a food plan that takes away the hunger caused by the meds and an exercise plan to  burn off  some of the extra calories if overeating does occur.

Zyprexa is one of those meds that can cause enormous weight gain. It is in another class of drugs, not actually an antidepressant but used as you experienced for bipolar disorder. I am glad you were able to lose your weight after you stop taking it. What we need is for new research to develop meds that will take care of the emotional disorders without making people gain so much weight they develop other problems like diabetes or high blood pressure etc.

I also had this problem with Zyprexa.  I was 150 and ended up 220.  I didn't know and wasn't told by my shrink it would cause weight gain.  At the time I just wanted the voices to go away.

Anyway I went off the zyprexa but it took years to get the weight off.  One thing to consider for me was that the lithium I was also on increased my desire for carbs while zyprexa made me tired and hungry.  I can't believe the amount of food I was eating!

No one is really sure why lithium increases food intake and weight but that is a major side effect. The way we try to fight it is to strengthen the power of serotonin to cause satiety or satisfaction. And since there are no drugs which will do this, the best we can do, as I mention in the Serotonin Power Diet, is to use therapeutic amounts of carbohydrate to increase the brain's ability to make more serotonin. Carbs don't make serotonin itself but they start a process which ends up with more serotonin in the brain. I hope someday soon there will be other ways of doing this but for now, this is it.

One of the side effects of certain meds is that they slow you down; you don't move as much, you may lose muscle and your metabolism may also get slower. So as you said, even if you don't eat any differently you will gain weight. YOu can lose it but it comes off slowly. When I ran a weight loss center that cared for people who gained weight on antidepressants, we combined our special diet with gentle exercise . Eventually people were able to exercise more vigorously , put on muscle and combined with the diet that controlled their appetite, they did lose weight .