“What happens after you stop antidepressants?”

If cold turkey, it can cause withdrawal sx. However depends on dose and type of medication. Always better to taper off any psychotropic agent.

3 possibilities. Nothing, withdrawal symptoms, or a return of depressive symptoms.

Great question! It all depends on what the medication was being used for, the severity of the problem, whether there has been additional talking therapy approaches to help overcome the issue, and the amount and duration of the medication, as well as how you have decreased off of the medication. If you have been under the careful direction of a psychopharmacologist in addition to a therapist, tightly following your course of the treated issue along with the medication, generally things should go back to a physiologic state before the medication and therapy was started. Always do this under the guise of a psychopharmacologist and therapist.

Lance Steinberg MD, Inc.
Assistant Clinical Professor
UCLA (Geffen) NPI
1(818)224-3540

That depends on the reason for taking an antidepressant. If it’s for depression and you have only had 1 episode of depression before and have been doing well for 6 months-1yr then chances are good you will continue to feel well. It’s always best to decrease the medication before stopping it to make sure you feel good and to prevent any possible withdrawal before stopping completely. Therapy is always important as part of treatment and should help with working through some of the factors that may have contributed to the depression. Always consult with your doctor before stopping any medication.

That's a great question. There are several classes of antidepressants, and each acts a little differently. The most commonly prescribed are SRIs and SNRIs (serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors). Both can cause a withdrawal response if you taper or stop them too quickly. Most common are an upset stomach, maybe some diarrhea, and feeling anxious or jittery. A slow taper should take weeks or months, the slower the better.

The larger problem is that you usually can't feel the antidepressants are working, and it's common to decide they aren't doing anything. So, you quit. BAD MOVE! Aside from the withdrawal symptoms noted above, your depression can return in full force, often with a delay of 1-2 weeks or more. The way you can tell the antidepressant is helping is you say to yourself, "I feel terrific! Why am I taking this junk?" So, you stop it, and the depression returns.