Medication Management

Medicines like antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and stimulants play a vital role in helping people with psychiatric disorders. Anne-Marie Odo, DNP, at Semper Healthcare Services in Addison, Texas, provides expert medication management services to ensure you get optimal results from your medication. Call Semper Healthcare Services today to learn how medication management could benefit your health, or book an appointment via the online scheduling form.

What is medication management?

Medication management is a crucial aspect of effective mental health treatment. While some patients with mild disorders and those facing challenging experiences recover well with talk therapy alone, those with more severe or complex mental health needs benefit from carefully selected medications.

Some of the drugs you might need to take, depending on your condition, include:

Antidepressants

Antidepressants help with mood disorders like depression. The most widely prescribed are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which help balance the mood-regulating neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) in your brain. Tricyclic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are useful if SSRIs don’t work for you.

Anti-anxiety drugs

These medicines also work on your neurotransmitter levels. Common ones include venlafaxine, a serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI). Some patients benefit from sedative or tranquilizing medications for extreme anxiety.

Mood stabilizers

Mood stabilizers like lithium reduce the severity and frequency of mood swings. They’re particularly valuable for patients with bipolar disorder.

Antipsychotic medications

Antipsychotics reduce disturbing problems like hallucinations and delusions typical of schizophrenia and severe bipolar I disorder.

Methadone

Methadone is the leading medication approved by the government to treat opioid addiction to eliminate withdrawal symptoms and relive drug cravings.

Suboxone

Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone) can help patients struggling to reduce their dependence on opioids. This medication mimics how illicit opioids work without the effect of getting high. Suboxone is usually administered as a dissolvable tablet every few days.

Vivitrol

Vivitrol (naltrexone) works similarly to Suboxone, allowing you to safely detox from addictive opioids without withdrawal symptoms. Your provider administers Vivitrol via an intramuscular injection once a month. This option is great if you don’t want to take medication regularly.

Stimulants

Stimulants help people manage attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms.

What does medication management involve?

Medication management focuses on finding the right combination and dose of medications for each individual. Many drugs have different effects on people, so one person taking an SSRI might do well while another feels little benefit and suffers unpleasant side effects.

The highly skilled Semper Healthcare Services team selects the medicines most likely to benefit you and monitors your progress. If you experience adverse effects or fail to improve, your provider adjusts the dose or transfers you to a different drug. They do blood tests to assess your health if you take medications like lithium.

The team also assists with therapy to promote medication management compliance.

What happens at a medication management review?

Your medication management review starts with a discussion about your symptoms, any improvement or decline, and any side effects. Make sure your provider knows about other medications you take in addition to the ones they prescribe for mental health problems.

After assessing your progress and reviewing your medical history, your provider recommends any beneficial alterations.

Call Semper Healthcare Services today to discover the benefits of expert medication management or book an appointment using the online form.