Fluoexitine

[AliceCT]

My teenage son who's 14 has been diagnosed with depression and advised to go onto a small dose Fluoexitine. Has anyone else had experience of this? Did it help?

Hi @AliceCT Teen DD trues fluoxetine for a couple of months. It did help a bit but we decided to change to setraline as the improvement wasn't enough. I would say just from what I have gathered that it is different for everybody. The NICE guidelines state that fluoxetine has to be tried first for this age group - as this is the medicine that has been tested the most for this group. If that doesn't work then they can try others.

Does that help? Happy to answer anything else as I know I too was looking for this kind of info when we were starting.

I myself have been on fluxotine for post natal depression. I have since had my medication changed as it kept being upped until I was on the maximum dose as it wasn't helping whatsoever. I also have friends I know of saying they've had to change theirs from that too as it didn't seem to work for them either. Just keep an eye on him. Fingers crossed it helps him

My son takes fluoxetine and also.started on it at 14. He was prescribed it as his anxiety was so bad he could barely leave the house. The difference in him was astounding. He has no issues at all now with going out and although he sometimes still gets anxious about things it's to a manageable level.

He does now have issues with depression but we think it was always there, just massively drowned out by the anxiety.

It did take a good few weeks to start working though. But once it did it was a miracle.

I think one of the main benefits had been that it has calmed things down enough to enable him to engage with counselling which he always found difficult before.

I hope your son feels better soon.

I was given citalapram by the gp for years with no effect. I saw a psychatist who prescribed fluxitine, along with threapy it worked a charm. All the best op.

Fluoxetine alongside therapeutic work will be more effective as opposed to in isolation as per NICE guidelines

My DD was prescribed with Fluoxetine at the age of 16. While I acknowledge it can work very effectively, I'd advise that you monitor his reaction really carefully. In a small number of cases, teenagers can react very badly to it. Unfortunately, my DD was one who did, and it made her much worse - psychotic with serious self harm and suicidal thoughts. As I said, it can work brilliantly and I certainly wouldn't advise against it, but you do need to be aware of the potential risk just in case.

Some people find it great but My dd17 had bad side effects from it. No appetite , severe panic attacks and too weak to get out of bed. It had no effect on low mood.
She was changed to Sertraline and recovered fully after 5 weeks on 100mg . She was initially on 50mg with no effect. All these drugs seem to cause panic attacks and anxiety in the first few weeks and the person can often feel worse initially.

Fluoxetine made me and my brother suicidal. Doesn't mean it will for everyone but monitor him closely.