Psychiatric drugs, will you develop a tolerance? 3 Reasons Why Medication Increases Every Time You Visit a PsychiatristPsychiatrist Hyunjung Seo

Psychiatric drugs, will you develop a tolerance? 3 Reasons Why Medication Increases Every Time You Visit a PsychiatristPsychiatrist Hyunjung Seo

Dec 14, 2024Ehotyshamull Joy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will first give you the definition of drug dependence, misuse, and tolerance.

 

"Dependence" refers to behavioral, physical, and psychological use of medications more and more, a lot of effort to obtain medications, and withdrawal symptoms when there are no medications. A common example is alcohol dependence. Dependence leads to addiction* in turn.

 

'Misuse' refers to the use of a drug for a purpose other than its intended effect.

 

'Tolerance' means that the degree of action of a drug is reduced, and there are more substances to achieve the same effect. Dependence is often accompanied by tolerance.

*Poisoning: Taking an overdose of a substance until it has a toxic effect

 

There are three main reasons why the medication increases with each visit.

First, because the initial dose and the therapeutic dose are different.

 

Because the treatment dose may have side effects early on and the effects of the treatment may appear later, the doctor prescribing the drug will start with a lower dose and then slowly increase the dose to the original dose. This leads to an increase in the number of drugs.

 

It is a process of titration, and depending on the individual's level of response, the final dose of treatment may be low or high. The dosage that is appropriate for each individual will be prescribed in the end. You don't have to worry because if you prescribe more than others, it doesn't mean you're taking more than you need.

 

Secondly, because anti-side effects are used.

 

Anti-side effects may be prescribed at a later date to prevent symptoms after taking prescribed psychiatric medications. In this case, too, the patient may feel that the medication has increased. It can be prescribed when it is necessary to suppress the progression of the disease and relieve symptoms through the efficacy of medicines such as laxatives, digestive medicines, and muscle tension relievers, or to treat the symptoms that accompany the disease, such as sleeping pills and painkillers.

 

Thirdly, because symptom recurrence or poor compliance may lead to the need for greater therapeutic effect.

 

This is not what the patient or the doctor wants, but it can happen due to a variety of factors. There may be various reasons for this, such as the patient self-diagnosing that the patient is cured because the initial treatment effect is good, and not taking the medicine properly as prescribed, or the doctor's prescribed amount is not enough to improve the symptoms.

 

As a solution, 'drug combination therapy' is practiced, which allows the use of multiple drugs to treat symptoms that cannot be resolved with one medication. For example, depression medication supplements may be used in addition to prescription antidepressants. Or, a situation in which the symptoms that need to be improved are called 'treatment resistance'. To address this resistance to treatment, you can use a treatment that increases the dose of the drug.

 

Tolerance and treatment resistance have in common that the amount of medicine used to treat the symptoms increases, but the difference is that the drug acts less effectively, and treatment resistance refers to the fact that the drug works the same but the severity of the symptoms increases and a larger dose of the drug is required.



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