Suggest Treatment For Depression And Anxiety

Posted on Mon, 11 Aug 2014

Question: My son (17) has showed signs of depression for about a year. He has requested to see a counselor for this. We did this and as part of his treatment, she has suggested he be put on antidepressants. The doctor suggested Lexapro 10mg for a very short period of time (6months) to level his seratonin levels. I am not excited about the idea of starting one so young on antidepressants, but my son really seems to think that it would do some good. He has tried marijuana and raiding our medicine cabinets to find things that will help him sleep and not be so anxious. This kind of thing doesn't run in my family and I am probably what they would call old school where things like this, you just dealt with it and moved on. Do you think this medicine would be harmful to try?

Answered by Dr. Srikanth Reddy (47 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
No it should be treated

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

Thanks for choosing health care magic for posting your query.

I have gone through your question in detail and I can understand what you are going through.

Lexapro is a very good drug with no major side effect. And the side effects occur very rarely. I have plenty of patients on lexapro and everybody is doing fine. Your son is 17 and he is not this young either. Persistence of depression will cause damage to certain areas of brain and the longer it persists , it increases the chance of second episode of depression. Hence it should better be treated.

Hope I am able to answer your concerns.

If you have any further query, I would be glad to help you.

If not, you may close the discussion and if possible you may rate the answer for me, so that I get a good feedback.

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Wish you good health,

Kind regards

Dr. Srikanth Reddy M.D.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar