What is Serotonin Syndrome - Is It Fatal?

Serotonin is a brain chemical, also called neurotransmitter that plays a role in controlling your mood and anxiety. Low levels of this in your brain contribute to depression and anxiety. Therefore, many of the medications we use to treat depression and anxiety work by increasing the levels of serotonin in your brain.

Serotonin syndrome happens when you get an excess amount of serotonin from taking super high doses of the medication like if you were to take an overdose or when medications get combined with other medications that increase serotonin.

Serotonin syndrome symptoms can range from mild to severe and fall into three groupings and you should have symptoms in all three categories:
Changes in your mental state
Abnormal muscular tone
Hyperactive autonomic nervous system

Here are the take aways from this video
1. If you are taking antidepressant medications be careful anytime you add another medication even something over the counter. You always want to check the drug-drug interactions. You can use the drug interaction checker on Web MD. This applies to some prescription pain medications like Tramadol and Imitrex for migraines.

2. Normal use of your antidepressant shouldn’t cause this problem, but if you have combined it with something, look out for odd signs like fever, wide open pupils, abnormal blood pressure and muscle stiffness. Those are the symptoms that are not the normal side effects. If you are experiencing these things call your doctor or go the your nearest urgent care or emergency room. To determine if you have serotonin syndrome, someone will need to examine you, monitor your vital signs and observe you. It usually goes away within 24 hours once you stop the medications.

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Disclaimer: All of the information on this channel is for educational purposes and not intended to be specific/personal medical advice from me to you. Watching the videos or getting answers to comments/question, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you have your own doctor, perhaps these videos can help prepare you for your discussion with your doctor.

By: Dr. Tracey Marks
Title: What is Serotonin Syndrome - Is It Fatal?
Sourced From: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKZjDhc1Ctg