Starting a medication is easy...stopping it can be much harder

Antidepressants need instructions on how to stop them, just like cars need brakes.

Recently in Australia on a lecture tour, Mark Horowitz, a Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry in the UK’s National Health Service and trainee psychiatrist, said doctors should not be prescribing antidepressants without warning patients about the difficulty of stopping the drugs.

“You wouldn’t sell a car without brakes,” said Horowitz, “I think the same should apply to antidepressants. The drugs should come with instructions on how to stop them safely.”

For decades, patients have been told that withdrawal symptoms are “mild and only last 2 to 3 weeks.”

But Horowitz said that’s not true for most people who’ve been taking the drugs long-term – and the longer you’re on them, the harder it is to stop.