As seen in the Huffington Post
By Ashley Broadwater
I don’t know about you, but I keep seeing social media posts about antidepressants increasing the risk of heat stroke. In medication commercials, you hear a long list of side effects, but so many seem rare. Is this something we need to be worried about?
As a proud user of Prozac, I figured this was worth checking out, so I spoke with experts about whether antidepressants really cause issues with heat during the summer months.
The short answer? Yes.
How can antidepressants increase your risk of heat stroke?
Basically, antidepressants can affect your body’s ability to regulate your temperature and can contribute to dehydration, which can lead to a heat stroke.
“Antidepressants can impair the temperature regulation area of the brain, i.e., hypothalamus,” said Dr. Markus Ploesser, a psychiatrist and chief innovation officer at Open Mind Health. “They can also increase sweating, thus contributing to dehydration.”
Your body may also lose water as your sodium levels decrease because of the medication. “Certain antidepressants — most notably mood-stabilizing antidepressants used to treat bipolar depression — can cause lower sodium levels, making the body lose more water and increase dehydration,” Ploesser added.
In the summer months, you’re probably already feeling hot and dehydrated, which doesn’t combine well with those side effects. And if you become dehydrated and can’t sweat enough or drink enough water, your temperature rises, which can lead to a heat stroke.
Signs of a heat stroke include having a temperature above 103 degrees Fahrenheit, dry skin, not sweating, a rapid pulse, a headache, nausea, dizziness, confusion and unconsciousness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Read the full article here.
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