Can taking an overdose of Prozac kill you, and if so how much would be required?
Disclaimer: I am in no way intending suicide by this or any other method. I take 60mg of Prozac daily for a OCD / Eating Disorder combo and my Doctor only ever prescribes me 28 days worth of tablets at a time. One reason is so he can monitor my illness, but I got to wondering whether there mught be another reason. Prozac is supposedly non-addictive, so that isn’t the reason, and to the best of my knowledge increasing your dosage isn’t likley to get you high. So I wondered if maybe an overdose would be fatal. Google has turned up nothing beyond ‘if you take an overdose, tell your GP’.
So, are there any medical dopers out there who can answer my query?
Mods - I realise that this might appear to be a sensitive question. It is not my intention to be an arsehole, and it is a genuine query but if it is considered inappropriate, please close forthwith and accept my apologies.
Asshole! Did you know that Prozac isn’t biodegradeable? When you take the “medicine” some passes right through your body and comes out when you peepee!! This leftover prozac is in our drinking water…little amounts though…still, I don’t want some of your fucking brain altering drug in my goddamn water. Hmmmm, what gets me is how the commercials say “blah blah blah MAY be caused by a chemical imbalance…” No wonder you people see results, it’s a fucking sedative A.K.A tranquiilizer…that’s why kids that take ritulin are always the fuckin psychopathic school murderers…
If it were a sedative, everyone taking it would feel immediate effects. Prozac takes 2 to 6 weeks before it begins to have an effect on depression. A loss of appetite is often one of the side effects.
I don’t know what the effects of an overdose would be, but most doctors limit the supply, I would think. Mine does. Do you have to see him before it can be refilled?
I also take medication for obsessive behaviors. There are medications that have been used to treat convulsions that have been found to affect compulsive behaviors. I think the one that I take is called topax. It has completely changed the way I related to food and has also curtailed my shopping quite a bit.
Give the prozac a chance to make a difference. Its affect on me was profound.
Here’s a link to the product insert for Prozac. It looks as though death via overdose of Prozac is quite rare… only two deaths out of 38 acute overdoses reported. One of those deaths was a combined overdose of Prozac and another drug. The second involved an overdose of 3000mg, but it’s noted that the patient vomited and so the amount of drug absorbed was probably much less.
The animal testing seems to indicate that an overdose of even twice the therapeutic dosage can induce seizures.
I am glad to know you drink human waste, perhaps you should do it more often. I would however love a cite for this spurious claim.
Sedative? A tranquillizer? Got some proof of that that nobody else on the world is aware of then? Now as for what you call ‘psychopathic school murderers’ you blame ritalin, without evidence and without even considering any underlying problems. Given the nature of your obvious prejudices and vehemence in your rant one is forced to wonder at the state of your own mental health. Please, see a professional, maybe they will be able to prescribe something for you. Possibly even Prozac.
IANAD, but another reason of only doing 28 days is the more pragmatic “medication tango” you may have to go through. Even if prozac seems to work for you (it did for me), you may have to go from one med to another, and it’s silly to have a lot of medications you’re never going to take just lying around the house.
Around these parts, people are expected to back up their own claims. If you can’t–or won’t–then we’re free to assume you’re talking out your posterior, and we’ll call you on it.
And a friendly heads-up: the mods don’t generally look too kindly upon name-calling outside of The Pit. FYI.
Well, although phrased in possibly the most alarmist and immature manner possible, it is true that pharmaceuticals including Prozac have been found in wastewater discharges and in the flesh of fish in streams fed by those discharges. I suspect, given his location, that Paradoxical is referring to this.
There are a couple of interesting issues here. The first is that this particular stream where the bluegills containing Prozac were found is fed * exclusively * by the wastewater plant in the summer (being in arid West Texas). (If you’re squeamish about what you or your fish are swimming in, think about that for a while.) Certainly if the wastewater plant is the sole source of the water, the concentration is going to be much higher than in rivers where there is considerable rainfall or groundwater components.
The second interesting thing is that fluoxetine is not the only substance they’ve found in wastewater – they’ve also found traces of soaps and perfumes, steroids and estrogen. Hey, Paradoxical – if you’re worried about ingesting fluoxetine, how does estrogen grab you?
My mother is a psychiatric nurse, and she says that most modern antidepressants are made so that you can take FAR TOO MANY and still survive. Why give a depressed (possibly suicidal) psychiatric patient something deadly? According to her, the most they’ll do is make you puke and feel awful. It’s possible to kill yourself with them, but incredibly difficult.
Although my post was meant to sound immature, thank you for backing it up. “Asshole” was not meant to be malicious, I was joking, but sarcasm isn’t easily read. I was assuming that post wouldn’t be taken for face value, afterall I did say peepee…
It is rare to overdose on Prozac or any SSRI (Zoloft, Celexa, Paxil, etc.). This is actually the main advantage of these medicines over the older antidepressants. They don’t work any better than prior antidepressants (efficacy is similar), but overall they have a better side effect profile, particularly compared to things like Elavil, Pamelor, etc., the so called tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) that were first line medical treatment before the SSRIs arrived on the scene. TCAs can cause fatal heart arrhythmias in overdose. There is a Serotonin symdrome that can occur, but it is not fatal, typically.
So in general, no, but I wouldn't recommend anyone test the theory because ANYTHING, even water, taken in excess can be potentially fatal.
And for the record, SSRIs are not sedatives. And there are things much worse than Prozac that I would be worried about in my water first.
I hadn’t seen that article, until it was linked. I don’t live in West Texas, I live near houston. My statement was based on a rumor a friend of mine had heard, a while back…