***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!

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.

Hello last year I had gone thru a very rough time In my life where I needed to be put on Zoloft 50mg around march 2024. I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and OCD. Ive been suffering from OCD since I was like 11 and depression since I was 19, but I never sought help until last year Im 27 because I knew I needed it to help me get thru life. I was on 3 months on Zoloft and I went to a trip to Miami which honestly helped me so much, I honestly attribute that trip to Miami in healing me more than the Zoloft it self. I met my current girlfriend there. After coming back I felt like a new person. I still kept taking the Zoloft 50mg until late April (2025) this year when I decided to tapper down to 25mg by my self without a doc recommendation, I didn’t feel anything during the month of may this year until like may 30th when I woke up in a panic and I felt like I was back at square 1 before I started Zoloft. Mind you ive been thru some life changes, I recently graduated RN school and my gf moved in with me. Ever since the end of may I’ve been very anxious, my OCD is on high gear and my depression too. I went back up to 50mg I’m seeing a new doc, my questions is has anyone gone thru a similar situation? If so what helped you and how long did it take you to stabilize ?

heyyyy everyone, has anyone had any weird experiences with lexapro? quick back story, had really bad health anxiety paired with ocd compulsions and other things not relevant to this discussion, got fluvoxamine, could never go past 50mg without increased anxiety and derealization/depersonalization... eventually got off and got on lexapro, started with 5 mg, went to 10 mg, just a few days ago went to 15 mg because i felt as if my health compulsions and fears were making a comeback. i believe im on day 3 of 15 mg lexapro and i feel as if im spiraling a tad bit, nothing crazy/anything i havent experienced before... but in my post work shower i felt feverish almost... which is a trigger for me, my mind automatically thinks cancer. i tried resisting the thoughts to google my symptoms (literally just feeling feverish) and took my temp, and took my temp again.... and again.... and again.... (tale as old as time lol) each time it was in normal range... but i still feel weird. brain fog, dissociating, just all around weird vibe and heightened senses of my body and such. could this be because of the lexapro? idk. lowkey thinking i was bound for an ocd relapse because i was doing so good the majority of this year, erp went great, medications were finally working, but now i feel like its all coming back :(, any advice?