Serotonin Syndrome
Serotonin syndrome is an unfortunate and potentially fatal illness that afflicts hundreds of people around the world every year. The causes vary, but many cases of serotonin syndrome occur after prescription drugs react negatively with the human body. Doctors will often refer to serotonin syndrome as serotonin toxicity, toxidrome, serotonin sickness, serotonin poisoning, hyperserotonemia, or even serotonergic syndrome due to the nature of the disease within the body. They insist that the excess serotonergic activity at the central nervous syndrome qualifies serotonin syndrome as a case of toxicity instead. There are a number of symptoms that may indicate serotonin syndrome has affected your or a loved one’s body. They include: shivering, sweating, agitation, fever, rapid heart rate, diarrhea, nausea, neuromuscular problems, and most notably, altered mental states. Typically these symptoms are noticeable within 24 hours of taking the harmful drugs, or mixed dosages. Some symptoms, however, are noticeable within only a few minutes of ingesting the drugs. The most serious cases are evident through the drastic mental shock experienced by the body. The body temperature often rises to as high as 106 degrees in many life-threatening cases. This heat causes the brain immense stress, which leads to an altered state. In few cases abnormalities such as rhabdomyolysis, seizures, and metabolic acidosis afflict the patient as well. If you have any of these symptoms call an ambulance right away as serotonin syndrome, if left untreated, is a fatal disease. In order for you to avoid becoming sick you must avoid certain prescription drug combinations. In 2007 the Food and Drug Administration released reports warning headache sufferers to be wary of antidepressant medications that may cause sickness. In fact, antidepressant medications are known to be one of the highest risk medications. Thankfully, you are most likely not at risk of serotonin syndrome if you take antidepressant medication alone. The use of tricyclic antidepressants for migraine headaches is typically performed in small doses only. In one recent study, 1700 different patients were injected with sumatriptan in addition to an SSRI antidepressant (a common cause of serotonin syndrome) and there were no reported cases. These are all positive signs. The number of serotonin syndrome sufferers is calculated at around 0.7 cases per 1000 months of SSRI antidepressant treatments. Additionally, there have been no cases reported from triptans alone. Therefore, it seems possible that the Food and Drug Administration issued the warning so that physicians would be made aware of the possibility of serotonin syndrome with these prescription drugs. If you are one of the few people that have serotonin syndrome you must be warned that there is no laboratory test for the disease. Diagnosis is performed by analyzing the medical history, which is a somewhat time consuming task for physicians. Also, doctors will test the Hunter Serotonin Toxicity Criteria to understand if serotonin syndrome is the correct diagnosis. Managing serotonin is done primarily be discontinuing the usage of disease inducing prescription drugs. Sometimes patients will elect to administer what are called “serotonin antagonists”, such as cyproheptadine, which may also help solve the problem.
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