Kotz Deborah - The antidepressant survival guide: the clinically proven program to enhance the benefits and beat the side effects of your medication

Patients Praise for
Dr. Hedayas The Antidepressant Survival Guide

I want to thank you for the antidepressant survival book and the program, which for me has been a miracle. I cannot believe the change it has made in my life. Thanks to you I am a kid again at the young age of sixty-nine.

Andrew W.

For the first time since Ive been on my meds, Im starting to lose weight! My energy levels are better too. I love it! Congratulations on your groundbreaking publication that addresses the holistic spectrum of critical issues facing those of us who suffer from depression.

Marybeth N.

When my husband saw the article in the Washington Post, he called me and brought me home a copy of The Antidepressant Survival Guide that evening. By the next evening, I had read the entire book (including sections out loud to my husband and family), and we all felt as if our prayers had been answered. Ive already told my therapist, our marriage counselor, and my family doctor about your approach. I couldnt believe that your practice was so close and accepting new patients. I would have gone around the world for such help! God bless you for caring enough, having the courage to go outside the norm of treatment guidelines, and for taking the time to do the research required to help patients have the full lives they deserve!

Anne S.

I am currently reading your book. I feel better knowing that I can take action to help myself. Your advice is clear and encouraging. Thank you.

Jennifer V.

I sat down and read your new book from cover to cover last night. I wanted to thank you for a much needed book for all of us on antidepressants.

Margaret D.

Your book has given me a lot of hope in this confusing process of healing fear and depression. I find you and your work interesting and dynamic.

Tracey E.

This book is not intended to substitute for consultation with a qualified medical doctor. The author recommends consultation with a medical doctor before beginning any part of the program. The author or his agents will not accept responsibility for injury, loss, or damage occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of material in this book, whether or not such injury, loss, or damage is due in any way to any negligent act or omission, breach of duty, or default on the part of the author or his agents.

For the sake of privacy, the names of the patients whose stories are told in this book and personal details that might identify them have been changed.

Copyright 2000 by Robert J. Hedaya, M.D.

Foreword copyright 2000 by Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group.

Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland www.randomhouse.com

Three Rivers Press is a registered trademark and the Three Rivers Press colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover by Harmony Books in 2000 as The Antidepressant Survival Program

D ESIGN BY L YNNE A MFT A UTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY J OSH H ORWITZ

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hedaya, Robert J.
The antidepressant survival guide : the clinically proven program to enhance the benefits and beat the side effects of your medication / Robert J. Hedaya.
1. Antidepressants. 2. AntidepressantsSide effects. 3. Psychopharmacology. 4. Depression, Mental.
1. Title.
RM332.H43 2000
616.8527061dc21 99-33924

eISBN: 978-0-307-77962-5

v3.1

To Life!

Foreword
by Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D.

Introduction
Im Not Depressed Anymore, but When Do I Get a Life?

Despite the tremendous advances in the treatment of depression in recent years, many patients, even with the best medical care, feel that they are not living rich and fulfilling lives. These are the so-called partial responders. For others the side effects of their medications have paradoxically created new obstacles to reclaiming the daily pleasures that they have lost to depression.

Bob Hedaya is one of those rare doctors who has been able to bring a broad range of skills to bear on solving the problem of side effects (including unwanted weight gain, lethargy, and loss of sexual vitality) as well as incomplete responses to antidepressant medication.

Bobs open-mindedness, on the one hand, and respect for hard-nosed science, on the other, are unusual among medical doctors. In this age of superspecialization, physicians can easily be hemmed in by their narrow fields of research, which is why an out-of-the-box thinker like Bob is so valuable. He brings a comprehensive knowledge of divergent fields to bear on any problem, from nutrition and fitness to psychopharmacology and endocrinology. In this book, he offers a wealth of wisdom drawn from years of clinical experience, research, and teaching.

The Antidepressant Survival Guide is a much-needed lantern in the darkness: a beacon of hope, a prescription for health. The program Bob presents in this book is a marriage of creativity and pragmatism. It draws on important new research from a wide range of disciplines that impact the mind and the body, while managing to avoid being doctrinaire. As he says in his introduction, whatevers safe and effective is in play. Rather than taking the easy route of damning antidepressant medications as worse than the cureand they emphatically are nothes devised a comprehensive program for maximizing the benefits of antidepressants while minimizing their side effects.

But what I suspect most readers will appreciate in Bobs book is his wisdom. His approach is as simple as it is compassionate: patients can have the best of both worldsfreedom from depression and freedom from side effects. Unlike doctors who might adopt the attitude Be thankful youre not depressed anymore, Bob has a far broader goal in mind: a full life, with self-esteem, body image, vitality, and sexuality intact.

The program outlined in this bookbased on his years of clinical experienceis very ambitious. It offers people not just a remedy for side effects, but a chance to make a full recovery from symptoms to enjoy a level of physical and psychological health they may never have experienced before.