***IMPORTANT*** Hey, I have a very urgent question regarding my antidepressant, and I know it might just sound like any other OCD spike, or me just being a hypochondriac, but I really need to be made aware if what I'm doing is lowering the effectiveness of my medication, or even worse, causing it to become toxic. I store my antidepressants (which are in a tablet form) inside a small cardboard box, with a lid that doesn't exactly have an air tight seal, and I have found out, that after the 2 years I have just been absentmindedly taking them, there has been a crack in the box, meaning the pills have been exposed to air "constantly." I have heard that there are pills out there way more oxygen-sensitive than antidepressants, but I'm still worried, about whether or not they expire faster, or if the formula even changes. Keep in mind I have kept them away from heat and moisture. But ontop of all of this, I can't really swallow pills, at least not very well, so I've always just let it dissolve in my mouth and then swallowed it. During my research on the whole "longterm air exposure" situation, which I never found a straight answer about, I stumbled across a person saying that you should never crush your pills because they have a stomach acid resistant coating on the outside that allows it to only breakdown and get absorbed into the body at specific rate. Apparently if that exact rate of absorption doesn't occur then I may either feel no effect at all, or all of the effect will happen at once instead of spread over 24 hours. Please help, especially if you are a doctor or a pharmacist who knows a little about this, because I would hate to think that I have been doing something harmful to my body, even if unintentional, and if so, I'll will need to discontinue the way I do things immediately. Thanks!

for past three years I would take pills for anything, anxiety related to even medication for infections. But I just cant anymore. My throat feels really small, even when I eat food. I asked my dentist to prescribe me liquid Amoxicillin, and she did. My parents picked up my medication and it was capsule form instead. They know my aversion to swallowing pills so they broke it apart and was mixed in with orange juice, but even then that worries me. what if I get a health defect from that method? Thats why tomorrow I am asking for a presciption Liquid Amoxicillin, I've been extremely anxious today and it sucks.

I am having an appointment with my psychiatrist this afternoon and I am obsessing about what to do with my medication. I think it’s also very ocd like obsessing. I am currently on 30mg mirtazapine. Ive been on this for years (because of insomnia, anxiety and depression) (15mg) and after we tried to switch to another (amitryptiline) because of nerve pain, I went down the road of insomnia and later on ocd again. So I am back on mirtazapine, and weaning off of the amitryptiline. This is/was a very traumatic experience. Because the switch caused a mental breakdown. Now my psychiatrist has mentioned to up the mirtazapine to 45mg. And my obsessive self has done a lot of research and a lot is saying that the higher the dose, the more you can experience anxiety. And for ocd it’s obviously not the first choice. I am obsessing all morning about it. I am too scared to go up. But I am also too scared to try another and to wean myself of off mirtazapine. I feel stuck at this point. Taking two meds is also not something I want. I could really use some words of encouragement right now I think. 🥹

So, I’ve had my OCD mostly “under control” for the past 10 years (I’m 44, battled this all my life). I’ve been on a high dosage of Luvox, but unfortunately it’s lost its effectiveness about 6 months ago. For the past five months I’ve also been doing therapy sessions on this site and have had a fairly good outcome. My main obsessions have mainly regarded around balance and symmetry. Anyhow, I’m in the process of switching to Prozac. It’s only been 6 days, so I obviously feel nothing yet. I made the foolish mistake of googling “What can antidepressants cause?” Unfortunately I found a very recent article of a study showing antidepressant users have a higher chance of getting ALS. There’s also older articles that say the opposite. But this one article FREAKED ME OUT. And I can only focus on the worst outcome. So, now I’m stuck in a repetitive thought pattern of getting ALS from the one medication that is supposed to help me. It’s absolutely terrifying and I haven’t experienced a health anxiety fear like this in years. I want to research more and more online, but I know this won’t help. It will only make things worse. Anyone with health anxiety have any advice on how to conquer this? I’m standing strong and not getting off my medication or doing any research.