need to pick someone's brain on antidepressants

[Piecelilies]

DC (teen) has ASD, depression and anxiety utoo.

Been in sertraline for a year but made no difference. Eventually started to hallucinate and frequent self harm. Psychiatrist then decided to switch to Fluoxetine. Mood went down further, we even had one suicide attempt but psychiatrist says we need to stay on it a bit longer to see if it helps. 3.5 months in and apart from driving DC to attempt to take their life, it has done nothing. Mood still awful, self harming still happening, hallucinations still happening.

Would you insist on trying yet another one? If so, any recommendations? I do wonder if we should stop them altogether since mental health only went downhill in the last 18 months since starting. Are there others anyone could recommended? It's really not an area I know a lot about and I never had issues with my MH so no experience at all ..but I can see its not making anything better. quite the opposite. Has anyone any thoughts?

Ask for a different kind. He might be like me and can't get on with SSRIs. I had the same sort of stuff: hallucinations, strange vivid dreams, epic mood swings so bad I nearly lost my job.

Went onto an older tricyclic antidepressant despite dire warnings of side effects and general doom from GP but psychiatrist overruled her and I have been absolutely fine on it. The only side effects I had were dizziness the first 2 weeks and some dry mouth.

They don't like prescribing them as they aren't that widely tolerated and I suspect more expensive but for some people they're much much more effective.

Apparently the newer ones are more refined and only work on serotonin reuptake but the older ones were more of a sledgehammer approach and inhibit the reuptake of serotonin, norepinephrine and I think something else but I can't remember it. So they hit you like a train but by god do they work.

They settle that gnawing anxiety in your stomach pretty quickly once you hit the minimum therapeutic dose, 50mg for Amitriptyline but others might vary. The depression they take a bit longer to lift but I was noticeably better at around 6 weeks.

I would control them yourself though as they are lethal in overdose so a suicide attempt on them would likely succeed.

Does he have therapy? That was what really turned me around in the end.

thank you. Will raise it with the psych. and no, no therapy. on a waiting list but that is a few years away. So meds are the only interim solution for now. We have to manage suicide and self harm risk by providing 24/7 supervision of some sort. Driving to school to hand over to reception, same in pick up. And always under some adult supervision whilst at home or when out and about. and we sleep in the same room.