What is this drug used for?
Hey guys welcome back to meds made easy my name is arun verma with telfair specialty pharmacy today we’re gonna talk about s citalopram complicated name but really it’s lexapro fancy stuff that just went generic recently in the last couple of years very good medication it’s cousins with citalopram so if you tried citalopram you weren’t getting the results you
Wanted your doctor may own two escitalopram very good stuff so let’s get into it what does it do it is for general anxiety disorder and/or depression can use it for either or and then off-label there’s a lot of different uses for a whole bunch of stuff any kind of behavioral disorders issues like that you can use this medication for it’ll help and you a lot
Of times they’ll use it in conjunction with other medications that work in the brain and you get great results scientifically it’s an ssri selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor fancy words for just saying it increases serotonin in your brain so when you have depression in it usually means that there’s a chemical imbalance in your brain you don’t have enough
Of one thing or too much of something else and so this kind of helps you level off and get to where you need to be so people who generally are depressed don’t have enough serotonin in their body serotonin is what gives you the feelings of happiness and fulfillment and things like that so more serotonin the happier you are and then the less depressed you are
Simple stuff right you can take it without that food doesn’t really matter there’s several ways to take it generally you take it once in the morning that’s generally how i’ve always seen it in very rare instances you may take it twice a day but again that kind of really depends on your doctor they can kind of dose it however they see fit that’s kind of how you
See it it generally kicks in in about a week you can kind of start to feel the effects however depending on your past history with depression if you’ve been on other medications maybe you’ve built a bit of a tolerance up for it or whatever whatever it could take up to 8 to 12 weeks to see the full effect which is why you kind of have to just stick with it i’ve
Talked about in previous videos but if you take drugs or alcohol that’s going to here how this medication works and thus all you’re gonna do is just kind of get in the way of this pill doing its job and then we want the pill to do its job so you know avoid taking all these different drugs and alcohol or abusing alcohol while you’re on this medication it does
Go through your liver so if you have any sort of hepatic issues and paddock impairment make sure you doctors aware of that so that maybe we can kind of switch you on to something else or do whatever we can to kind of protect your liver from being more tax than it already is i’ll put up a list of side effects right here these are the most common and then also
At the same time when you’re on this medication most doctors over time we’ll put you on other depression medications as well to kind of stack them so that you get the max benefit there’s a synergistic effect that can happen whenever you put the right drugs together but one of the biggest caveats is these ones that are called mao inhibitors we’re getting into
The complicated stuff i know but briefly just make sure that your doctor is well aware make sure you’re going to one doctor or if you’re going to several doctors everyone’s on the same page about what you are taking so that they don’t put you on this medication because then you’re going to get side-effects and issues that happen you generally need like a 14 day
Gap from when you stop this medication to when you can start an mao which is a different kind of medication for these same sort of issues and then also just don’t stop taking the medication one day if you’re having side effects and the side effects are really the number one thing if you get those like dull throbbing headaches that don’t go away you need to let
Your doctor know but don’t just stop the medication because you have to wean off of it because you’ll have withdrawal symptoms a lot of people are usually associated with drawl with like something like a medication that’s really really bad or something it’s not it’s just the fact that this works in your brain you have to treat it just a little bit differently
So if you just stop taking it all of a sudden your body’s used to you getting this much serotonin and then the next day if you just stop and then all of a sudden you have this much in there it’s gonna throw your chemical balance off and then you’re going to feel the effects so we now slowly make sure you wean off and you you weaned off this medication under the
Supervision of doctor that’s the most important thing i’ve had people call me go i just didn’t feel good on it now i just like to stop two three months into it they’re like i had some headaches but you know i just dealt with it don’t don’t do that that’s dangerous to your body and especially if you’ve had some really severe depression you don’t just want to stop
Because there are things that can happen to you which kind of gets into my next point this has a black box warning which is an fda indicated warning for increased suicidal thoughts that generally tends to happen with depression medications i know it kind of is counteractive because if you’re on this medication should make you happier you should be less suicidal
But it’s something that in practice we’ve always kind of seen this kind of happen where it does lead to this as well so just watch out for that if you’re starting to get these like increased suicidal thoughts aggressive behavior things like that let your doctor know because then we need to definitely switch you off this medication it’s not good for you okay
Which is why also with depression it’s if you have clinical depression it is a serious situation and you need to also let people around you know about it so that they can let you know hey have you try have you been on a new medication yes i have well you know i think i think you’re acting a certain way because sometimes you don’t know that you’re acting weird
Until someone tells you like hey you know you’ve been a little extra agitated with everyone or you’ve been a little angry or you tone has been like this are you sure that’s not the side effect of the medication and so that’s kind of like a safety check to have i always let my patients know about that cuz sometimes you’re you know you can’t fully trust you you
Think everything’s normal when it’s not so i think that’s it guys again depression is a very very in-depth topic we could go on for it for a very very long time i’m just giving you the one on one’s the basics on lexapro and this citalopram if you have detailed questions please direct them to your doctor your local pharmacist or give us a call here tell for a
Specialty pharmacy we would love to kind of go through the ins and outs of how depression is and things you can watch out for it ok thanks for tuning in guys please make sure to subscribe leave comments below what helps what doesn’t help what would you like us to add in the videos moving forward and it’s all really just to help you guys okay we’re you know that’s
What these videos serve so alright guys that’s it we’ll see you next time on meds made easy
Transcribed from video
Escitalopram (Lexapro) : Meds Made Easy (MME) By Pharmacy Central
