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Dr. Andrew Rynne
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Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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Is Giving Trazodone Safe Instead Of Mirtazapine To Control Anxiety And Mood Swings?

My sixteen year old has a diagnosis of MDD, C-PTSD and anxiety. After working with a psychiatrist and going through several months of trials on different meds such as hydroxyzine and paxil, then a trial of lamotrigine and trazodone, she was finally beginning to see some progress on 150 MG of Zoloft with 100-200 mg of Trazadone nightly. Her psychiatrist was considering adding something to the mix to help regulate her mood swings ( which are odd since bipolar has been ruled out after several evaluations and a horrible reaction to Prozac - she never has a manic episode. She s only ever just meh, OK or way, way down and suicidal). Due to the mental health system in Arizona, she was moved to a new psych doc, then another within two months. The first doc increased her trazadone to 300 mg nightly. 30 days later, a second doctor demanded to know why she was on so much trazadone and took her off all of her meds immediately and put her on 15 mg nightly of mertazapine. After six weeks on Mertazapine, she became suicidal, self harming, filled with rage, homicidal, in fact, she was completely unable to regulate her moods and cycled every 20-30 minutes. At this point, we were between psychiatrists and I was desperate after five days/nights of being on suicide watch (the system here for such things doesn t work, and her only other option was the ER, which we ve experienced before and it did no good). I quit giving her the Mertazapine. After three days, I began to give her the trazadone to sleep at night and help regulate her moods and calm down. Nine days later, taking 200 mg. of Trazadone nightly and nothing else, she is now still reporting depression and anxiety, but states she s feeling better and now has the ability to stop herself from self-harm and raging. I know I shouldn t have taken her off the med suddenly and without doc approval, but was desperate to give her some relief. What do you recommend?
posted on Tue, 17 Nov 2015
Twitter Sat, 4 Apr 2020 Answered on
Twitter Wed, 8 Apr 2020 Last reviewed on
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General Surgeon 's  Response
Hello,

The trazodone is an anti depressant medication which raise the level of serotonin in the brain. But it is associated with number of side effects as common ones:
- Dizziness
- Insomnia
- Headache
- Palpitation
- Diarrhea
- Weight gain
- Tachycardia
- Death in occasional cases

In summary, it is absolutely not advisable to start the drug without a detailed discussion with your doc for the same.

Hope I have answered your question. Let me know if I can assist you further.

Regards,
Dr. Bhagyesh V. Patel, General Surgeon
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Is Giving Trazodone Safe Instead Of Mirtazapine To Control Anxiety And Mood Swings?

Hello, The trazodone is an anti depressant medication which raise the level of serotonin in the brain. But it is associated with number of side effects as common ones: - Dizziness - Insomnia - Headache - Palpitation - Diarrhea - Weight gain - Tachycardia - Death in occasional cases In summary, it is absolutely not advisable to start the drug without a detailed discussion with your doc for the same. Hope I have answered your question. Let me know if I can assist you further. Regards, Dr. Bhagyesh V. Patel, General Surgeon