When I go for my annual checkup, I am weighed with my clothes on so I try to make my appointment during the summer months. Even so, I always weigh more on his scale than on my own when wearing only a towel. But tell that to my doctor. He is too busy checking the computer and his notes for updates on tests, prescriptions and recent illnesses to listen to my protestations about the weight I just gained in his office.
As frustrating as this is, it doesn't compare to the annoyance and helplessness someone must feel when confronted with a 15 or even 50-pound weight gain after a year on antidepressants or mood stabilizers. And unfortunately, when the association between taking these meds and gaining weight is pointed out to the physician, the response is too often disbelief, disapproval or disinterest.
The following cruel and unacceptable remarks represent only a few repeated to me in emails from women after their primary care doctors challenged their claim of antidepressant-associated weight gain.
"Don't blame it on your Prozac, you are just eating too much."
"If you exercised more and stopped snacking, you wouldn't have gained the weight."
"You women are all alike, always blaming something on your overeating."
"Antidepressants will make you lose, not gain, weight. Your problem is not with the medication. Your problem is with you."
The primary care doctor's refusal to believe in the weight-gaining potential of antidepressants is not rare, even when a patient, whose weight has been normal and stable for decades, has suddenly gained 30 pounds in one year.
However, if a patient walked into the doctor's office with blue eyebrows or orange teeth after a year on antidepressants, one imagines that the physician would immediately investigate this side effect of the medication, if only to prevent frightening patients in the waiting room. But when a formerly fit and lean patient grows chubby with sagging muscles and claims that she can't stop eating ever since going on drug X for anxiety or mood swings, the doctor often ignores this change in physical status as a side effect of the drug.
Getting your doctor to recognize and respond to the fact that your antidepressants or mood stabilizer caused your weight gain can be done without jumping up and down on the scale. But it takes homework before going for your checkup and the ability to talk fast. After all most office visits these days are restricted to 11 1/2 minutes.
Before you go:
1. Read the package insert. You may need a magnifying glass, but somewhere in the list of adverse events (a quaint way of saying side effects) weight gain will be listed. You can make a copy of the insert using the magnification tab on the copy machine so your doctor can read it, too.
2. Look up the medication in the PDR (Physician's Desk Reference). Libraries may have this available. The adverse events will be listed there with the frequency with which the side effect is found. For example, dry mouth is often listed first as it is a very common side effect. Make a copy. The book is much too heavy to take to the doctor's office.
3. Google the medication or medications you are taking. Put in the name of your medication and weight gain. Print out reference, articles or even blogs that seem similar to your own experience.
4. Call the customer service representative of the pharmaceutical company that produces your medication and ask for information on weight gain from studies using the drug.
5. If you weigh yourself frequently and record your weight, bring in the record of your weight gain after taking the medication.
6. Some doctors will tell you that you should be losing weight on your SSRIs. That was believed to be true when Prozac was first introduced. Then a national study to test the weight-loss ability of Prozac was carried out. It failed. The volunteers gained back all the weight they had lost initially and then some.
7. Contact national organizations such as NAMI (National Association of Mental Illness) for resource material on weight gain and psychotropic drugs (this is the name given to antidepressants, mood stabilizers and related medications).
8. Put all your documents in a folder and gently present it to your physician.
Warning: Convinced or not, your physician will most likely recommend a lean protein, along with vegetables and fruit, diet with moderate to non-existent amounts of carbohydrates.
Don't go on such a diet. The absence of carbohydrate will leave you serotonin deficient and even less able to control the medication-induced cravings. Make sure you eat moderate amounts of carbohydrate with little or no protein and little or no fat an hour or so before meals. New serotonin will be made and will help squash the cravings caused by the medication.
And next year when you come back for your checkup, you won't have to worry about what to wear when you are weighed. You will be thin.
Follow Judith J. Wurtman, PhD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stopmed_wt_gain
Judith J. Wurtman, PhD: The Catch-22 of Antidepressants
5 Surprising Reasons You're Gaining Weight
Prescription Drugs Causing Weight Gain? - MedicineNet
Prescription Drugs on medication-related weight gain - Johns ...
Fat Pharms: Prescription for Weight Gain | Psychology Today
Some common prescription medications cause weight gain - St ...
Wellbutrin made me lose my appetite so that I had to force myself to eat. I lost 50lbs.
Antidepressants and Mood stabilizers work differently for everyone, obviously, or else, we'd all be taking the same. Read the insert or look it up on the internet, most if not all of these medications specify that you could gain or lose weight. Wellbutrin is prescribed for weight loss sometimes, there's an answer for all the skeptics.
If your doctor patronizes you, doesn't hear you out or trivializes your reaction to medication - GET ANOTHER DOCTOR!
As a physician and weight loss specialist it has been my experience that many anti-depressants can and do increase weight gain due to a combination of increased appetite and decreased metabolism. It's a rough combo to fight and really requires a significant increase in physical activity while watching calories.
I do not recommend that my patients go off of their meds - if they are helping the depression - just because of weight gain. By joining a walking group, monitoring food intake, trying acupuncture and other tricks we get around the weight issue TOGETHER.
No one in history has ever said that, in those words, out loud to someone. It sounds like her inner voice yelling at her, or just a total fabrication. But the sentiment is true except for the ridiculous gender assignment. Men blame all kinds of erroneous things for their troubles, too, instead of looking in the mirror for the truth.
Gaining weight is increased caloric intake. Paxil doesn't put food in your mouth. Stop blaming your serotonin. Poor serotonin. It's the latest scapegoat for everything. People want everything. They want to boost their serotonin re-uptake with synthetic chemicals and then blame the serotonin re-uptake for their miseries, which is what led them to take synthetic chemicals in the first place. Obviously you're going to feel like increasing caloric intake when you feel less depressed. OMG. You want to scapegoat something? Figure out who you're angry at, besides me, who you've always been angry at, and throw the synthetic chemicals away safely.
http://www.psychnews.us/addicted.html
No one in history has ever said that, in those words, out loud to someone.
Are you kidding, what alternative universe do you live in. I was having sever pain and could not lift my left arm, but my doctor couldn't see me so her assistant suggested I go to the emergency room. Thousand of dollors later and upteen heart test I was released with 'should change antidepressent medicine, all in her head' on my chart. I made an appointment with my doctor and waited the 3 days to see her. I had tennis elbow! Wrapped my arm and didn't use it until the pain went away.
So yes, doctors say stupid things to women, which is why I have a women doctor. Men think like you and should not treat women because they are bias against them.
Doctors do not tell you that anti-depressants interfere with sex drive and the ability to climax either.
OK folks, here it is, for the small population suffering from bipolar or manic-depression, this does not apply to you.
Life doesn't always feel good and it is ok to grieve, cry, get angry and …kill the coffee grinder.
Popping a pill that makes you fat and takes away your orgasms so that you can stuff your pain and plaster a grin on your face while working longer hours at work, isn't going to fix your suffering or help deal with the pain.
Health risks associated with weight gain and obesity.
1. “The risk of heart attack, congestive heart failure, sudden cardiac death, angina or chest pain is increased in persons who are overweight or obese.
2. A weight increase of 11-18 pounds raises a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes to twice that of individuals who have not gained weight. Over 80 percent of people with diabetes are overweight or obese. This may account for the newly invented word, "diabesity"®, which signifies the close association between obesity and diabetes.
3. Obesity is associated with an increased risk for some types of cancer including endometrial (cancer of the lining of the uterus), colon, gall bladder, prostate, kidney, and post-menopausal breast cancer. Women gaining more than 20 pounds from age 18 to midlife double their risk of post-menopausal breast cancer, compared to women whose weight remains stable.
4. The risk of gallstones is approximately 3 times greater for obese patients than in non-obese people. Indeed, the risk of sympomatic gallstones appears to correlate with a rise in body mass index (BMI). “
http://www.annecollins.com/obesity/risks-of-obesity.htm for more reasons...
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/causes/health.html
IMHO doctors that think that sexual dysfunction and a 20lb or 30lb weight gain are acceptable side effects, need to get their heads examined. When did that become ok?