Posted by pellmell on July 19, 2001, at 20:09:08
In reply to MORE about this subject: » SalArmy4me, posted by Janelle on July 19, 2001, at 18:39:26
As far as I understand, there's only one type of serotonin *reuptake pump*, which is what SSRIs act on. Some of them do act on serotonin receptors (for instance, fluoxetine agonizes...um, I forget which one, but it causes its activating effects), but this seems to have more (but not exclusively) to do with their differing side-effects than their differing theraputic effects. The article that Sal cited is evidence of this.
So the secondary actions of SSRIs definitely affect their tolerability in different people. It might even make one more effective than another in a person. But it doesn't seem likely that a *non*-responder to one SSRI would respond to a different one, since their primary actions are the same.
But I can't cite any studies and I don't know any antecdotes that would back this up. So we're right where we started.
I'd like to know the answer to Sal's question myself.
-pm
> For what it's worth, a psychologist (get that! not even a pdoc) told me that even though ALL these meds (e.g., Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft et al.) are SSRI's, the reason that for example, Person A WILL RESPOND to Paxil and not Zoloft, but Person B WILL NOT RESPOND to Paxil and WILL RESPOND to Zoloft is that each of the SSRI's act on DIFFERENT Serotonin receptors.
>
> For the longest time, the ignorant one here didn't even know that there's more than one, that there are MANY, MANY different Serotonin receptors in the brain!!
>
> Therefore, it's trial-and-error until the person and their pdoc "find"/discover the SSRI which "matches" and binds with that person's "weak" receptor(s).
>
> So, it could be that YOUR particular receptor(s) MIGHT be "matched" to Prozac rather than the other two.
>
> Hope this makes sense - I'm not nearly as good as you are in explaining this stuff.
> -Janelle
poster:pellmell
thread:70936
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010714/msgs/70959.html