WHEN SHOULD A PATIENT TAKE PROZAC AS OPPOSED TO ANOTHER ANTIDEPRESSANT?
Prozac is a particularly beneficial treatment for:
• patients who are sensitive to side effects of medications in general, and especially the side effects of tricyclic antidepressants and MAOIs
• patients who dislike taking pills, since Prozac can be taken as one pill a day or in liquid form rather man the three to six capsules a day often needed with the tricyclics and MAOIs
• patients who have tried to overdose on other antidepressant drugs
• patients with cardiovascular disease, since Prozac’s effects on blood pressure and the electrocardiogram appear to be minimal (however, patients with unstable heart disease and recent myocardial infarction were not included in early studies).
What has been the major impact of Prozac on the treatment of depression, manic depression, dysthymic and personality disorders? Because the clinical efficacy of Prozac in depression is at least equal to the standard antidepressants, and because the side effects of Prozac are so much milder, the major impact of Prozac has been that patients, families, and physicians have preferred it and the newer drugs to most of the previously used drugs. Its safety and efficacy, in combination with the flood of publicity, both good and bad, it has received since it was first introduced to the American market in 1987, have made Prozac the number one best-selling antidepressant in the United States. In 1993, its sales reached $1.2 billion, exceeding the sales of all previously used antidepressant drugs both nationally and internationally.
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