Question:
My oldest(12 years old) is suffering from all the symptoms of major clinical depression
(there myself but meds are working). Any body have any recommendations as
what med to try first. I know that not all meds are tested/approved for use
with children. BTW Effexor EX 75mg/day is working for me.
Answer:
12 is pretty young but I would get his depression treated. I was 15
when I first got depressed. Shock treatment was the in thing back
then. Helped for 9 years then severe chronic depression again in 1971.
There were no good medications that work for me at that time so
depression sort of destroyed my thinking processes.
I guess what I'm saying is untreated depression if it's severe
enough can do extreme long term damage. Just my own personal
experience. I was
depressed for my entire Jr/Sr high school career and did not know it. I was
just recently diagnosed with depression. I thought every bod felt this way
all the time. So now for the first time in decades I feel good (not great
yet, but...) and I'm not going to let my children go through what I did if
it's in my power to do otherwise. No antidepressant is currently FDA-approved for depression in children.
However, one of the SSRIs - Luvox - is approved for *OCD* in children. This
means that it's safe for kids to take. Other SSRIs are most likely safe as
well, and since they have been studied the most in children, I'd say they're
the thing to start with. I'd avoid tricyclics, though...they have potential for
nasty cardiovascular complications.
Anecdotally, I had good results with Prozac the first time I took it, ages
14-17 - but it didn't work when I tried taking it again a couple years later.
It might be that childhood/adolescent depression is different from depression
in adults in some way.
