It’s become increasingly clear that genetics play a huge role in which psychiatric drugs are effective and which ones are not. Genetic testing for psych med effectiveness should become standard practice given how in some people, SSRIs (often the first line of defense in psych meds) can cause extended periods of psychosis.
Funny thing about psychosis — when you’re psychotic, your erratic and extreme behavior doesn’t feel abnormal. You don’t feel like anything has changed. This happened to me on Prozac — the most commonly prescribed antidepressant — and it took me 3 years to put my life back together after all the damage I did to my personal relationships during that period.
The anxiety I was dealing with was crippling, but it didn’t dismantle my life the way the side effects of that drug did. The treatment was absolutely worse than the disease. If they had done a genetic test first, they would have seen a red flag and avoided SSRIs all together.
This testing exists today, but it’s only used in patients who show strong resistance to pharmacological intervention. It should be standard.
Funny thing about psychosis — when you’re psychotic, your erratic and extreme behavior doesn’t feel abnormal. You don’t feel like anything has changed. This happened to me on Prozac — the most commonly prescribed antidepressant — and it took me 3 years to put my life back together after all the damage I did to my personal relationships during that period.
The anxiety I was dealing with was crippling, but it didn’t dismantle my life the way the side effects of that drug did. The treatment was absolutely worse than the disease. If they had done a genetic test first, they would have seen a red flag and avoided SSRIs all together.
This testing exists today, but it’s only used in patients who show strong resistance to pharmacological intervention. It should be standard.