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17Jul/115

How do you know if you should up your dose of antidepressants?



My 20 year old son has depression and can't concentrate because of his bad thoughts. He has been taking 50mg of Setraline for 8 weeks now and there is a slight improvement and he is about to start CBT. How do you know whether or not to up the dose to the next level?



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  1. Only change the dosage if the doctor recommends doing so. It could be that your son’s medication may need to be changed. A medication’s effectiveness depends on body chemistry, the illness itself, and sheer luck, and many times it takes trying different medications before finding the one that works best.

    Hope this helps.

  2. you don’t. If he has a good doctor, take him back and tell the doctor what’s going on. If the doc thinks it will help, then he will up the dose. ;p

  3. that is a pretty low dose, talk to his MD and see if you can bump it up to 100 mg, that is what it took before I saw results with my daughter with that same med.

  4. with some medicines it can take longer than eight weeks to get to an acceptable level – he needs to talk to his doctor – only then can an acceptable dosage be settled on.

  5. he needs to talk to his doctor and tell him that he is still having trouble concentrating even on his meds. He just needs to talk with his doctor and find out if he needs to up it. or if there some other reason why is having trouble concentrating. Talk to your son and have him talk to his doctor. that is the only way you are going to know for sure that he needs to up his dose.


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