Losing weight on mirtazapine

[stresseddaughter]

GP has prescribed me mirtazapine on psychiatrist’s recommendation for anxiety complicated by depression and trouble sleeping . I’m already very overweight (140kg ish, 5 ft 10) and GP has said they are monitoring very carefully to make sure weight doesn’t go up again . I’ve got PCOS and family hx of thyroid problems (my dad and most of his family are big) so worried I’m going to end up putting on even more weight .

I’m taking 30mg - increased last week, can definitely feel a change in appetite , and I’m worried ... at the moment I’m managing to maintain weight - no loss - which GP says is a massive achievement but I’d far rather be losing !

GP said it might not be possible to lose much whilst on the tablets , they think that the tablets change your metabolism or something ? I’m increasing my daily steps , cut down to 2 smaller meals a day , etc and eating less - I had an infection last month and barely ate for 4 weeks, but haven’t lost a pound .

Just wondering if anyone has taken these tablets before and been told the same , that they make losing weight very hard , or if there’s anything else I should be trying to do ?

Hi. I have PCOS and have been on 30mg mirtazapine for more than a year now. I'm managing to lose weight (I just posted on this thread about how specifically). I'm current a good couple of stones lighter than I was when I started the meds.

I've have read that on mirtazapine only about a third of people on it have a significant weight gain, despite its reputation. Another third have some increased appetite and maybe mild gain, which evens out after a while, and the rest have no particular effect on their weight while on it. But I have no idea where I came upon that statistic, so it might or might not be true. It just helped me personally to know that weight gain was not an inevitability when I switched to this drug (I was on fluoxetine previously, but it wasn't really helping me).