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Paxan (Colombia)
Paxetin (Iceland)
Paxtine (Australia)
Paxxet / פקסט (Israel)
Seroxat (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy,
Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom)
Paroxat (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany)
XET (India)
Generic Name: paroxetine
hydrochloride
Paxil and Paxil CR belong to the class of drugs known as
SSRI’s. The immediate release form i.e. vanilla paxil has FDA
approval for major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive
disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, general
anxiety disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. The
controlled release form of Paxil (Paxil CR) is approved for
major depression and panic disorder and pre-menstrual syndrome
and pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder.
But now studies across a wide spectrum of users suggest that
usage of SSRI’s like Paxil cause a significant amount of
weight gain.
Paxil along with Zoloft and Prozac is one of the top selling
medications in the United States. They have now gained
notoriety for the significant weight gain they cause so much
so that an obesity expert has described them as weight gain
drugs. When Paxil and other popular antidepressants were first
introduced in the market, they were prescribed by doctors for
weight loss. But they discovered later that any weight loss is
very brief and the patient is saddled with long term weight
gain. This weight gain is dangerous as the patient is at risk
from Type 2 diabetes and heart disease besides being
counterproductive as weight gain caused low self esteem and
consequently more anxiety and depression.
The irony is that due to this unexpected weight gain, many
patients stop taking these medications which are very
necessary to treat health which are far more serious than just
weight gain. Patients should be advised to accept this problem
as an unavoidable side effect and to deal with it calmly
instead of getting into a panic and abruptly stopping the
medication and switching to another SSRI which would most
probably have the same reaction.
Of course, it is not in the interests of the companies that
this unpleasant side effect be given much publicity. So, the
package inserts which also include an official description by
the company of the side effects of the drug do not dwell on
this fact for long..
In the package insert for Paxil which is an anti depressant
that has been linked to one of the biggest weight gains,
weight gain has only three words devoted to it ( “Frequent:
weight gain”) which appear in a listing of Paxil’s adverse
effects.
A patient reported gaining 20 pounds after taking Paxil for
four years. After having a fasting cholesterol blood work
done, the said patient was shocked to kearn that triglycerides
were 650 which is six times the normal amount of 15o or less
and his cholesterol was 395 whereas the normal is 200 or
lower.
Another experienced a weight gain of 20 pounds I four months
despite never eating fast food, exercising five times as week
and was now desperate for help.
Another patient reported a weight gain of eight pounds in two
weeks and promptly stopped the medication.
But stopping the medication
abruptly is not advisable too as Paxil and Paxil CR are one of
those medicines which if you discontinue and start again
later; they are not effective as they used to be. One has to
exercise caution when discontinuing anti depressants, as their
withdrawal can trigger mania so one has to be careful about
their usage if you are bipolar.
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