Ask Lemmy

Never. Turns out my issue was undiagnosed ADHD and trauma. Therapy and adderall have done wonders for me. I was trying to treat depression by itself, not as a side effect of another issue.

I took estrogen for depression, it started working within a week :p

Venlafaxine (SNRI).
Took a couple weeks to settle into side effects, and about half a year to dial up the dosage (with side effects being a few days to a week after dosage changes).

But it was pretty immediate. I think a big part was the act of treating it, the act of getting help.
Had a lot of ups & downs, took a while to "trust" it, to recognise it working. And building the habit of taking meds helped maintain a schedule.

Define 'working' becsuse a lot of strife can come from the differences between what you're expecting it to do and what will actually happen. For me, it just made it easier for me to lift myself out of bed in the morning and that's about where the progress ends. And that's the one I found after years of trying ones that were worse. They're not happy pills, they just let you deal with the horrible shit instead of becoming immobilized by it.

Escitalopram took only one day for me. For both anxiety and depression.

Bupropion took 3-4 weeks. For depression.

Trintellix took about 2 weeks. For anxiety.

It just kinda blended in, I don't have a real timeframe. I am very helpful.

Months. It took months of my med schedule before I was like "maybe these are working". My motivation and functioning was like zero still, but I wasn't depressed anymore.

Then doc put me back on a stimulant and it was so much more drastic an improvement I was frustrated we didn't do that first.

They never worked. For some unlucky people, anti-depressants just straight up don't work. If you're new at it, keep at it, but if it's been a few months it might be time to switch medication. if you've already switched a bunch of times, they might not work for you and your only option is probably therapy

Depression: Faster than immediate - I felt much better the instant I finally decided to treat it as an illness.

As fir the medication itself, ignoring not feeling too good from side effects, I was most surprised how it *immediately* fixed my sleep patterns, like day 1.

That felt like the foundation on which the rest of the improvement was built.

Wellbutrin, somewhere in the week to a month to really start working.

Depression. Sertraline/Zoloft. Months.

Initially, it helped a small amount. Possibly placebo. It was well-tolerated, so the dose was doubled. Then months (maybe 3?) of slight improvement.

But when it really took hold it felt sudden.

Fluoxetin: ~7 Weeks, 12 full effect.

Seratrelin: pretty much instant (side effects) main effect like never idk

Immediate. I tried prozac and it was absolutely horrible. After a week of taking it, I was so utterly miserable that being depressed was a step upwards, and I felt ~~great~~ not so bad after coming off it. That kept the depression away for quite a while.

Does alcohol count?

/s

Depends on the meds, and they can have a drastically different effect on people.

Duloxetin: days, full effect after about a month (side effects after a year or so)
Sertraline: never worked, in fact made stuff worse
Prefaxine: about three weeks to feel noticeable effect.

Depression, Prozac. Approximately 2-3 weeks when the initial benefits kick in, which is also how long it roughly took for me to feel depressed again when I once accidentally stopped the medication

To fully work? About a year. To some improvement, 3 months.

It never started to work for me and I tried pretty much every antidepressant on the market. They just put me in Zombie mode and I slept 18+ hours a day. It's 20 years ago I first tried meds and always waited the recommended amount of time for them to kick in, it just never happened and by now I just say fuck it and try to cope without them.

I took prozac for a little over a year. It never did anything for my depression or to help stop smoking, but it did give me ED while on it. So if you want to still be sad but also not ever jerk off or have sex, I'd recommend it.

I took citralopram for a couple of years. It took about 3 weeks to kick in.

Depression: SSRIs, within a few days Anxiety: Promethazine, within a few days

About a month for me. I'm taking both. It needs to build up in the system if I understood what the doctor said right.

(Edit: and booze completely kills it, just saying)

Zoloft, it took three days to start working. It had been an absolute gamechanger for my anxiety and I love it. 10/10

I’ve taken a bunch of anxiety meds. The only one that worked somewhat was Ativan, but I stopped after a few weeks because I was too anxious about taking it regularly and developing a benzo addiction.

Never worked

Anxiety meds typically a few days to start to notice. Depression meds either had severe negative side effects almost immediately, or positive effects would start showing up after 2 or 3 weeks.

I have now been on anti-depressants for almost five decades. In that time, I've used just about everything out there, and transitioned from one to the next. Unfortunately, the honest answer is that how long they take to kick in varies widely based on the specific medication. I'm sure the patient's condition can also change it by quite bit. My average has been around a month to get a useful effect, but my minimum is probably around a week and my maximum more like three months.